In Southern California; Plowing machine; In the oil country; San Francisco; The Union Ferry Depot; Fort Alkatras; Sausalito; Seal rocks; The Golden Gate; Sutro baths and museum; China Town; The United States Mint; James Lick; The Stanford University; The climate.

AFTER days of travel over the dreary desert waste, it was refreshing to look out in the early morning on the orchards of oranges, lemons, limes, and I know not how many other kinds of fruit. We are now

IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

There are yet miles on miles of desert country, but it is frequently broken by the orchards of tropical fruits. Some one said as we traversed New Mexico and Arizona deserts: "This country was made only to tie the lands which are fit for something together." I fell in with the balance in that opinion; but I am far from believing that now. Wherever water can be had for irrigation, these sandy plains and knobs can be made to blossom as the rose. It is demonstrated beyond all question here and in some of the parks about San Francisco. We passed in the night old Fort Yuma and the Colorado river, which separates Arizona from California and empties into the Gulf of California. From Riverside, Pomona and Los Angeles to San Francisco, over the Coast Line, the country is as the garden of the Lord, except when the great cattle ranches and wheat farms occupy the territory. Farming is made profitable only by irrigation. This is usually the rainy season when the irrigating ditches are not much in use, but no rain has fallen and the farmers are busy preparing the ground and planting wheat. In many places they were flooding the ground in order to bring up the wheat, already sown. I saw only a few places where the crop was showing. What would Alabama farmers think of running a plow with six and eight horses attached? It was not one plow, but a

PLOWING MACHINE

having several large breakers. I saw from six to ten horses pulling harrows. Horse flesh seems to be abundant. In size, the horses are simply immense. The Eucalyptus tree is a disappointment: where it stands alone it grows to a great height, having a few scattering branches; but in groves and clusters along avenues and on the mountain sides, it is charming. Its growth is rapid, and as an absorbent of malaria it is noted above all plants. I am surprised that it is not grown around Mobile and New Orleans. The Coast Line from Los Angeles has been open only a few weeks, and now trains run into San Francisco for the first time. Many roads centre here, but the Southern Pacific is the first to take its train into the city. All others have their terminals over the Bay at different points, or trains are brought over by steamers. From San Buena Ventura for many miles, our train runs by the side of the Ocean. It is a glorious sight to one unused to the Sea. There are numerous large towns and the lands in many places seem to be fertile almost to the beach. California is becoming

NOTED FOR ITS OIL.

At one point on the coast there must have been three hundred derricks, many of them on wharves extending far out into the ocean, the wells being only a few feet apart. Back in the mountains and foot-hills there must be many more, as I can see hundreds of great tanks along the beach. Owing to the high price for coal, it will not be a great while before oil will run most of the machinery on the Pacific Coast. The most of the coal used comes from Australia and is very high. The wildest, grandest scenery of the whole trip is where the road pierces the Coast Range at San Louis Obispo. I would not dare undertake its description. And now I am in

SAN FRANCISCO

after an absence of forty years. Of course I recognize nothing—all is changed; hills have been leveled and their sands emptied into the Bay. Front Street is now separated from the Bay front by blocks of magnificent buildings. My brother and his wife met me. How they have changed! I never would have known them. They were impolite enough to accuse me of growing old, too.

THE UNION FERRY DEPOT,

from which our boat started on its six mile trip across the Bay, is a wonderful structure, and is built on a mud foundation where the Bay has been filled in. It is 659 feet long with a clock tower rising 245 feet. The second story contains a hall the whole length of the building, 48 feet wide and 42 feet high. The building belongs to the State and is used for waiting rooms for some of the great railroads and for the many large ferry boats which cross the Bay to Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, Sausalito and many other points. The Bay is filled with shipping of every description and from all parts of the world.

FORT ALKATRAS

is on an island. If the prison there could talk, it could tell many a tale of suffering during the civil war, the only offense being, the occupant sympathized with the Confederacy. Yonder is Goat Island, in whose shadow a number of boys and I, years ago, in our own beautiful sail boat, on a Saturday morning, made a fine beginning for a day's fishing, but the wretched fellows soon took a notion to return to Oakland—meantime the wind had sprung up and the Bay was lashed into great billows. I was hopelessly in the minority, and reluctantly took my place and steered the little craft over the mad waves. In a few minutes every fellow except myself was deathly sick, and I was left to manage sails and helm alone. It was my first lesson in navigation. Time and again I was sure we were lost, but the Lord must have interposed, though none of us were much given to a religious life. When we got safely ashore my interest in the boat was quickly disposed of to my fool-hardy companions. Through all these years I have fondly hoped I might some day finish that fish, so unceremoniously broken into.

SAUSALITO

is the end of my journey. My brother lives here in a lovely home built in a niche of the mountain and fronting the Bay, which is not twenty steps from his gate. San Francisco is plainly in view directly in front, and Oakland and other cities by the Bay, are to the left. This is the terminus of a railroad which runs back in Marin county through a beautiful country. People who live here and on back for miles to San Rafael, mostly have business in the city.

They are conveyed to and from their homes by cars and boats which run every half hour. It is said there are two thousand people in this burg; but I can't see where they are. In nooks and corners of the mountains they are stuck away so that it looks more like a thickly settled country community than a town. The streets run around the mountains on easy grades so that before one is aware of it he is on a high elevation. Exercise! You can get all you want here. The back entrance to my brother's home is some four hundred feet above his house and is reached by a flight of steps almost as steep as a ladder. I have always counted myself a good walker, but I am not in it with these Californians. Both men and women are great walkers. Remarking on the great number of ruddy-faced girls and women I saw, the quick explanation was: "We have so much open weather and the air is so bracing, our people are so much out of doors; hence the ruddy cheeks." I am a

POOR HAND AT SIGHT-SEEING.

Probably it comes from a sort of tired feeling which I have had since my birth; anyway, I don't like to start out in the business of seeing things, but I just had to. These people believe they have something worth seeing and they leave their affairs behind and give themselves to showing the tourists the sights. And they are worth seeing, too. You can write almost anything extravagant about California and it will not be far from the truth. I was glad I was not left to myself, but how helpless I am when it comes to writing about the sights. I can command only a few adjectives and they soon become commonplace. "Immense" is one of my favorites. "Wonderful" is another. Then comes "great" and a lot of little ones until I grow tired and only grunt as my guide raves over what we are looking at. If I could only rave over things! I will never have a better opportunity than now, but the thing is impossible for me.

"The City of Atlanta" is the name of the Observation Car which makes several trips daily to the Cliff House and return. The conductor is a good talker and knows his business thoroughly. While the car moves along at a good speed, he announces to the travelers the places of interest.

We pass the great power house where is generated the electricity which runs the many miles of electric car line; the Mission Dolores, an old adobe building erected in 1776; Golden Gate Park, covering more than one thousand acres; the Affiliate Colleges, three great buildings situated on a mountain side overlooking the city and bay, and finally the Cliff House on the point on the Pacific. Out there two hundred yards away are the

SEAL ROCKS.

A great herd of seals live there, protected by the authorities for the pleasure of the travelers who flock here by the thousands. In the afternoon they look like a flock of sheep resting in the shadows of the rock; but in the morning they are playing in the waters. At one time they sound like a pack of hounds far in the distance; at another, like a herd of hungry cattle. This, with the roar of the ocean against the rocks, makes a sound one never can forget.

It is said that here, on the broad piazzas of the Cliff House, is the only spot in all the world where such a sight can be enjoyed. I was told that some years ago after a storm, a large sea-lion, killed by the storm, was washed ashore, and its weight was twenty-seven hundred pounds. I do not doubt it, judging by the appearance of one immense old fellow, which they have named "Ben Butler," after "Beast Butler," I suppose, of New Orleans fame.

The quickest way out of my troubles at this point is to allow other writers to tell of the things that I saw there.

"The entrance through

THE GOLDEN GATE

cannot be surpassed. On the right can be seen the Cliff House and Sutro Heights; on the left, Point Bonita Lighthouse. Passing these, you enter what might be called the vestibule of the Golden Gate, which narrows to the distance of one and one-eighth miles between Fort Point and Lime Point, with a depth of water of three hundred and ninety feet.

The bay is so land-locked that the early voyagers kept sailing right by its narrow opening, and it was not until November 7, 1769, that it was discovered; but it was not entered and made known to the world until 1775. The Bay covers 450 square miles. It can accommodate the navies of the entire world without crowding them.

SUTRO BATHS AND MUSEUM

is where an immense rock basin catches the water from the ocean twice a day at high tide. The baths, with a capacity of nearly two millions of gallons, can be filled within an hour. The length of the building is 500 feet. It has seating capacity for 3,700 and swimming accommodations for 2,000 bathers. Tons of iron and thousands of feet of glass, 3,000,000 feet of lumber and over 300,000 feet of concrete were used in its construction. The bathers are here all times of the year.

I can't tell of Golden Gate Park, with its beautiful drives, its statuary, museum, its herds of buffaloes and deer; of the Presidio, the Government reservation of over 1,500 acres, which has been beautified until it may be included among the parks of San Francisco.

CHINATOWN,

covering twelve squares of the city, where nobody lives but Chinese, is a place of great interest. Many visitors employ guides and take in the town at night, which, I am told, is the best time to see it at its worst. Horrid tales are told of underground opium dens, where victims of the drug, of all colors, congregate; of the gambling hells, and the Chinese lotteries. Two Chinese landed in 1848; in 1850 there were 450; in 1852 10,000 landed in one month. They were welcomed at first. They are the best of laborers, but they soon began to supplant white labor. It was discovered also that they did not come with their families, to make this country their home. They keep what they make and return with it to China—they even send the bones of their dead back to the Celestial Empire. By law, they have been prohibited from coming to this country for some years. The years of the first Exclusion Act are now about out, and one of the biggest questions, in the minds of Californians is, the new Exclusion Law. The Labor party is very strong in the State, and the politicians dare not antagonize it. It is a serious problem. If the Chinese would come like the people of other nations and bring their families and settle in the country, their enemies would be robbed of their strongest argument. No exclusion laws are thought of against the people of other nations, even though they supplant, in many lines, the American laboring man.

THE UNITED STATES MINT.

"The biggest mint in the world," the fellow said, is a place where one can feel mighty rich for a little while. Visitors are received at regular hours, bunched and put in charge of a guide who shows them through. One can see the money in every process of manufacture. I was impressed with the fact that two dies stamp $40,000 in $20 gold pieces in ten minutes and that the coinage is about $30,000,000 a year. I saw only one greenback and one copper while I was in San Francisco. Only gold and silver are used.

JAMES LICK

was an old pioneer—a machinist and a bachelor. He used his immense wealth in beautifying the city and benefiting his fellow men. The Pioneers' Building he gave, leaving it richly endowed. Here are gathered all the curios of the early times and from the fund is supported old and disabled pioneers. He gave to the city a great bath house, where any one can bathe without cost; $400,000 of his money went into the California Academy of Science.

The Lick Observatory, near San Jose, crowning the summit of Mount Hamilton, 4,250 feet above sea level, his greatest benefaction, I could only read about. The bequest amounted to $7,000,000, and the telescope alone cost $55,000. This is indeed the biggest telescope in the world.

THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY

at Palo Alto, only a few miles away from San Francisco on the Coast Line, I could easily have seen in passing, but it escaped me. It is named for Leland Stanford, Jr., for whom it will be a perpetual monument. He was the only child, and the parents devoted the whole of their princely fortune to the erection and endowment of this great school. I saw the palatial home of the widow in San Francisco. This school and the State University at Berkeley, certainly offer great advantages to the young men and women of California—they are both co-educational.

The great wealth of this country is simply marvelous. The taxable property of San Francisco amounts to nearly $400,000,000, with $120,000,000 hoarded in savings banks, or $343 per capita, but notwithstanding all this there is a great army of very poor people.

THE CLIMATE

about San Francisco is peculiar. The average maximum temperature for twenty-two years has been 62 and the minimum 51 degrees, a variation of only eleven degrees. The January temperature, for those years, has been 50 and for June 59 degrees. The last and the first three months of each year are the rainiest—only about 67 rainy days in the year. The people wear the same outer garments the year round. Ice and snow are seldom seen. The fogs make it an undesirable place for people with pulmonary troubles.

I have missed many things of great interest. Back of my brother's house, upon Mount Tamalpais, is the "crookedest railroad in the world." It doubles back on itself five times, forming a double bow knot. But for the fogs, I should have enjoyed the trip where the finest view in all the country may be had.

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