In full, the real name of Los Angeles is "La Puebla de Nuestra SeÑora la Reina de los Angeles"—"The City of our Lady the Queen of the Angels." Founded by Spanish settlers about 1780, it is built upon the plains that roll from the foothills of the Sierra Madre down to the sea. It represents the very last word in the civilization of the Far West.

Los Angeles is a city of which to be proud. It is a hustling metropolis, but not too hustling. Its streets are wide and well-laid, its buildings clean, and its residences are just too wonderful for any words of mine. It is moreover the "movie centre" par excellence of the world. "Duggie" and "Mary" and "Charlie" are not merely familiar characters on the screen. They are your neighbours. You see them pass in the streets and go shopping with them in the stores, like ordinary human beings. Undoubtedly the development of Los Angeles in recent years is due largely to this industry. So also is the amazing beauty of its feminine population. Going deeper still, we find that the secret of its success lies in the wonderful climate. There is but one rainy season in Los Angeles during the year, and that is the month of December.

Strange to say, Los Angeles is not on the sea-coast. It is twelve miles to the nearest part of the beach. This seemed rather extraordinary to me, particularly as San Francisco, with whom they are so eagerly competing, stands on one of the finest and largest harbours in the world. I remarked so to the Times reporter one day. "But why," I asked, "did they build Los Angeles so far from the sea?" "Oh well, you see," he replied in all seriousness, "they had a mighty good idea about things. They reckoned that by the time Los Angeles had really started growing she'd be right on top of the Pacific, so they gave her a chance and laid the place out twelve miles away." "Oh, was that it? I see," was my innocent retort.

Be that as it may, there is a network of beautiful, straight, concrete roads leading from the city down to the coast in all directions. Dozens of small residential towns are springing up amid this network of roads—towns that some day will be suburbs of Los Angeles. At least that is the way to think of them. And the roads themselves? On Saturday afternoons and Sundays they are like great living arteries along which flows an endless stream of motor-cars. The Californians know how to enjoy themselves. There is not one fragment of the art of exterminating boredom that they have not studied. They frivol en masse, and to do it they naturally choose the sea-beach as a habitat. Consequently the coast is strung with dozens of seaside resorts of every type and shade of description, and with only a mile or two between them.

A trip to one of these "Los Angeles Beaches" is essential to the education of the true student of Southern Californian civilization. Never at any time have I seen public highways so completely covered with motor-cars. The number seen approaches the incredible, in the eyes of the astonished European. Frequently there were two almost endless rows of cars with but a few feet between them, moving slowly along like a gigantic procession several miles in length. Occasionally there would be a hold-up, and the whole string of cars, one after the other, would pull up, each car close upon its forerunner. Without exception, all American cars are provided with buffers at front and rear so that the car does not suffer any damage when one touches another even with quite a severe impact. The obstruction is removed, and on the procession goes again. Perhaps some unfortunate is changing a wheel at the roadside. Then there is a big curve in the long, straight line where the more fortunate Fords and Maxwells and Buicks and Overlands, etc., etc., swerve round him. And thus we carry on until the coast is reached.

Naturally the first glimpse I had of the Pacific Ocean gave me feelings of unbounded joy. I even confess to having obeyed the childish instinct to pick up shells and seaweed on the beach. It was a sight to look upon until the majesty of the breakers and the infinite expanse of the deep blue ocean eclipsed one's sense of magnitude altogether and one became lost in a world of vision and fantasy.

I spent over a week in Los Angeles. During that time I was almost overwhelmed with hospitality. The Californians I found easily the most hospitable people in America. At every hand I found people, whom I had neither seen nor heard of before, inviting me to dinner, and taking me rides in their cars. Further, I found I was friends with the police, and that without any difficulty either! In fact, the very air of California is charged with friendliness. Consequently, I was sorry when the day came when I should leave it behind.

Lizzie was finished. She had had a complete overhaul and several parts of the engine replaced. Numerous telegrams and letters had been flashed across the States to the works at Chicago. They were in vain. Although still under the makers' guarantee, they would accept no responsibility. I paid the last bill that made Lizzie's repair account just exceed the amount I originally paid for her three months before and started out to complete the journey to San Francisco. I cannot, however, omit to mention the extreme courtesy and hospitality with which I was met at the Henderson Agency itself. I could never at any time wish for better attention or hope to make better friends in foreign countries than I was fortunate enough to do in the "City of Angels." I left it with a pang of regret.

It was late in the evening when I started. I found to my annoyance that the lights were defective. The headlight was hors de combat. Only the "dimmer" remained to light me on my way. I had about sixty dollars in my pocket, though, so I was the perfection of happiness withal.

I am afraid those sixty dollars need some explanation. I arrived in Los Angeles a week before with about twenty. The Post Office, as ever, maintained an inexplicable silence. Having now quite reconciled myself to being mailless wherever I went, save for a letter or two forwarded through my friends in Cincinnati, I decided to direct my energies to a profitable purpose while waiting for Lizzie's return from hospital.

I scanned the newspapers night and day. Had I been a tram-driver or a page-boy I could have made a hit at once without any difficulty. There was also a big demand for boot-blacks, but for anything that suited my tastes and inclinations there was nothing. My small stock of "greenbacks" (paper dollars) was slowly diminishing the while. Something had to be done.

So I started in on journalism. Strange to say, I made money at it. With the one exception of Kansas City, it is the only time I ever have. Americans seemed interested in the impressions of stray Englishmen through "God's own country." Better still, Californians seemed interested to learn what one stray Englishman in particular had to say about California on the one hand, and all the other States on the other!

I have the best of reasons for believing that they were perfectly satisfied with my report. So that is how, after paying for Lizzie's operation, I still had sixty odd dollars left to my credit.

The broad, well-lighted city streets with their trolley-cars soon were left behind, and we rode for miles along boulevards of wondrous surface through the residential quarters of Los Angeles. There were magnificent bungalows of countless variety, the homes of both poor and rich. Further on, we passed through Hollywood, the home of the homes of the "movie" people. Occasionally would be seen a great block of buildings, unpretentious in architecture but palatial in extent. These were the "studios" where the films are made that instruct, amuse, and annoy the world's population.

Finally, the last bungalow receded into the background and ahead was inky blackness, a beautiful concrete highway, and the faint forms of mountain ranges. In the darkness, dispelled only within a radius of a few feet by the small pea-lamp that remained in service, everything looked mystic, shadowy, and strange. It seemed just the night, just the surroundings for adventure, the kind of environment that makes the vagrant life so much worth living.

The road ran parallel with the coastline, some ten or more miles away, but in between lay the Santa Monica Mountains, whose feet the highway skirted. Sometimes the hill-sides were barren and rocky; other times they were clothed in gloomy cedar forests. I wondered what strange animals lurked in them and whether I should make the acquaintance of any mountain lions, bears, wolves, wild cats and other animals that still are plentiful in the mountain regions of California. Occasionally a car passed, the glare of its headlights transforming the sombre surroundings into a still stranger world of silver and gold. The road for a few moments changed to a path of glistening white leading to the unknown. And then, when the car dashed by, everything plunged instantaneously into a sea of blackness so intense that it could almost be felt.

I had intended to polish off a couple of hundred miles before morning. I love nothing better than a long night ride on a good road. But lack of illumination defied my intentions. After thirty miles I pulled in to the side of the road where a great beech tree overhung its branches, and laid down my ground-sheet upon the soft bed of dead leaves and nuts that lay beneath.

It was the softest mattress that I have ever lain upon in the open. In a few minutes I was fast asleep.

In the early hours of the morning I began to dream. I dreamt that some great animal was walking slowly around me as I lay. It snuffled about, grunting at intervals in a most dissatisfied manner. It is not a habit of mine to dream about anything. I remember reflecting subconsciously that I had ceased to dream of bears and such like when I reached the age of four. Why then should I dream about them now? Oh, hang the fellow! What is he making that confounded noise for?

A few minutes later I discovered that I was not dreaming at all. I was wide awake. Without moving anything but my eyes I peered into the darkness that still enshrouded everything. Sure enough I could make out a huge black mass somewhere near my feet, but could not discern its actual form.... Slowly, gently, I slipped my hand underneath my pillow. At last, I thought, I shall have a chance of shooting at something bigger than prairie-dogs! And then the thought struck me, how strange it was that in all these thousands of miles of travelling through plains and deserts and forests, my slumbers had never been interrupted by any nocturnal visitor—I had not even seen anything that could possibly annoy the most domesticated young person who loves his feather-bed.

The big black thing became more distinct as I looked. His head was down and he was engaged in wondering just exactly what my feet were and who put them there; whether they'd be nice to eat if vegetable, and if not, whether they were animal or mineral, and if so, why? I waited my time. He put his head closer to smell the offending object. With a sudden kick I landed out straight for his nose with my right foot. A yell rent the air and the big black thing leapt away squealing into the darkness. A 33 bullet followed him there just for luck.

His squeaks gradually died down as he scampered helter-skelter down the road. It was only a poor harmless pig looking for nuts—but he had no right to disturb my slumbers!

In the morning we continued towards the west. The end of the Santa Monica Range came in sight and soon the road descended in long winding "grades" towards the sea-coast. For the first time by daylight I saw California in its true colours. Here I should mention that the height of summer is not the best time to explore California. It is in the winter and the spring that the country is arrayed in its greatest glory. The lack of rain, even near the sea-coast, is so marked that by the time summer is reaching its zenith, there is not a green blade of grass to be seen. The face of the country, where it remains uncultivated and unirrigated, is an eternal brown. At first this brings a sense of disappointment to the traveller who has heard so much of California's meadows of wonderful green mingled with the hues of countless kinds of wild flowers. In summer-time there are none. But in spring-time, when the sun has not started to blaze and the rain has worked its miracles, the charm of the country must be beyond description.

At Ventura, a pretty town on the sea-coast, Lizzie's speedometer ticked off the 4,500th mile. There remained another 450 to be done, and the journey would be at an end. I had little doubt now of getting there. The roads were so good that motor-cycling was child's play. Indeed it often became monotonous. At most times one could travel at almost any speed of which one's machine was capable, and still the straight, flat roads would be tiring to the point of boredom.

The towns and villages one passed, however, were full of charm. The most famous road through California, El Camino Real—which means "The Highway of the King"—was one which I was following and had its origin in the old trail which the historic padres followed in the romantic days of the Spanish occupation two and three hundred years ago. This trail, blazed by the padres "by God's will for the reigning monarch of Spain," stretches for 900 miles from Mexico to Oregon, and along it there still stand the old Mission Houses that are so prominent a feature of Californian history. There are nineteen of them, each "a day's journey apart," and each of an entirely distinct and characteristic type of architecture.

These Missions stand to-day, having with few exceptions been maintained intact in their original form, and they serve as beautiful testimonies to the genius of their builders. So admired is their style of architecture that they are religiously copied, more so now than ever before, in public buildings and sometimes private dwellings in all parts of the West. One even sees railway stations and tramway termini modelled in the form of one of these ancient Franciscan Missions!

If I was charmed with Ventura, I was thrice charmed with Santa Barbara, another wonderful coast town of modern style built on an ancient site. The old Santa Barbara Mission stands away up on the hill-sides of the Santa Ynez Range above the town and looks over the blue waters of the Pacific towards the craggy islands of Santa Cruz that lie beyond. For sheer delight of climate, scenery, and surroundings I would forsake any home in any town in any country that I have yet seen to live in Santa Barbara, had I the wherewithal to do so.

Following the coastline, and in many places separated from it only by a ridge of stones or a strip of vegetation, the road continues on its happy way for many miles. On the left splash the deep blue waters of the Pacific. On the right rise steeply the Santa Ynez Mountains, which like a link in a great chain form, with many others, more or less disjointed, the "coast range" that fringes the sea from Mexico to Oregon. Sometimes the road is bordered with Yucca palms, sometimes with pepper trees, and sometimes with eucalyptus. One even sees, almost simultaneously, cactus plants and prickly pears growing amid the parched-up grass on the sun-swept side of some unfriendly hill!

At Caviota, a few miles south of the famous "Point Conception," the road leaves the coast and swerves inland. Across the tip of the Santa Ynez Range it goes, swerving now to the left, then to the right, climbing, dipping, and swerving again for sixty or seventy miles until once more it catches a glimpse of the Pacific at El Pismo beach.

Near here I left the beaten track and followed a narrow pathway that led around a hill-side to the cliffs. Here I made my bed down once again in the long, dry grass that clothed the top. I could say with tolerable certainty that never before had a motor-cycle followed that path. It was soon no more than a little rut scarcely visible in the grassy slope. But I achieved my objective. With the murmur of the sea, as it dashed against the rocks a few hundred feet below, singing always in my ears, I passed one more night of exquisite repose and magic charm.

I awoke in the morning and sniffed the sea air. It was very attractive certainly, but was there not something the matter with it somehow? Or was it my imagination? I wriggled half out of bed and peered over the edge of the cliff. I stopped; I looked; I listened. Down there, on a little bed of white sand, lay a dead seal stretched out flat, as one would lay a tablecloth. He looked a dismal sight, poor fellow.

Ten miles more, inland again, and it was breakfast-time. We were at San Luis Obispo, a fine little town at the foot of the Santa Margarita—one more link in the coast range. San Luis Obispo took its name from an old Mission founded in 1772, and once was the centre of wealth among the Spaniards of the country.

Afterwards we cross the hills and continue northward. Always the Southern Pacific Railroad is on our right, sometimes just a few feet from the highway. The concrete has stopped and at intervals we have our old friend, the natural gravel. The laying of concrete is being proceeded with at many places, a hundred yards or so at a time, and detours running parallel at the side connect us up with the road ahead. Many little seedling towns are passed—all of them well planned and well advertised—and at last we come to Paso Robles (Pass of the Oaks), a larger town which derives its name from a great natural oak park. I should mention that oak trees are abundant in California and they grow often to a very great size.

We are now in the Salinas Valley, in proportion like a long, narrow groove 100 miles long cut in the face of the country. Through it runs the Salinas River, winding and bending with great sweeps through its sandy bed. At midsummer it is dried up completely, and, from the long wooden bridges that cross and re-cross it, looks like a sandy sea-beach, with fences across from one bank to the other to stop the cattle straying!

Along this valley blows a constant cool wind from the sea in the north. All day long it blows, week in, week out. The further north one proceeds the stronger it becomes, until it approaches almost a gale that whistles down the narrow channel like a cold blast, even in the broiling heat of the cloudless sun. Where, here and there, were to be seen bunches of poplar trees and eucalyptus, they were invariably leaning distinctly to the south, their gaunt trunks permanently moulded by the inexorable wind. On the smaller trees, the sycamores and the cedars, there was often not a branch nor a leaf to be seen on the northern side of the trunk, the foliage almost touching the ground on the southern side. Those hundred miles were the coldest I had known in the whole journey, and always I found the head wind so strong that the power of the machine seemed half absorbed in merely combating it.

San Miguel, San Ardo, King City, Soledad, Gonzales, and finally, at five in the afternoon, Salinas was reached at the end of the valley. San Francisco was now but little more than 100 miles beyond. To-morrow would be the last day. The end was in sight.

But what of Lizzie? Alas, she was in a sorry condition. Gradually since we left Los Angeles two days before she had fallen off in power. The old rattles and noises had recurred with astonishing alacrity. I had had many stops for minor adjustments and examinations, and even feared another breakdown before the skyscrapers of 'Frisco loomed in sight. The reader may be in as good a position as I to judge of the merits of American compared with English motor-cycles, but he will admit that seldom could occur a worse combination of bad luck and pig-headed pertinacity than is witnessed in the wanderings of Lizzie and me through the United States of America.

At Salinas I ate and drank right heartily, and drowned my sorrows in wistful contemplation of the blue eyes of the gentle damsel who served apple pie across the counter of the "quick-meal" luncheon bar.

"Lizzie, would you like to sleep by the sea to-night for the last time? Think we can get there, old girl? It's twenty miles there and twenty back, y' know!—Righto, c'mon!" and she burst once again into an animated confusion of noise and life.

Monterey is on the coast. It stands surrounded by hills on a magnificent bay which, with its yachts, motor-launches, and fishing-boats, is one of the most famous beauty-spots of the Californian coast. Monterey was once an important centre of history in the early days of Spanish and Mexican sovereignty. Later, it enjoyed the distinction of being the first spot in California where the American flag was hoisted. Now it is little more than a seaside resort, but as famous in California as is Naples in Italy.

A splendid highway leads from Salinas and cuts through beautiful hills clothed in cedar and oak. The journey was worth doing, if only to breathe the sea air again and sleep to its murmur.

It was rather a pathetic affair—that last night out. I hated to leave Lizzie propped up on her stand on the low cliffs while I made a comfortable bed in the sand on the beach. The tide was out, but I was determined to get as near to the sea as possible. I chose a spot where, nestled in a sandy cove in the rocks, I could see the breakers just a score of yards from my feet.

I awoke in the early morning to find the sea barely a foot from my feet. The tide rose higher than I had expected, but I had time to enjoy a few delightful minutes of lying half awake in bed before I finally proved discretion to be better than damp bedclothes and dragged my belongings to a less obtrusive spot.

Thus dawned another day, the day that was to see the end. I had ample time and lingered on the way, now administering friendly attention to Lizzie, now stopping for a light refreshment or to take a leisurely photograph. It was all too glorious—that last day.

But poor old Lizzie again showed signs of exhaustion. I nursed her tenderly and rode as slowly as I felt inclined throughout the day.

Monterey was left behind after breakfast. Then Salinas was reached once more, and now we were again on the road to 'Frisco.

Over the mountains to the east once again, down the San Juan Grade, that wound and screwed itself round the rocky slopes, and we got to San Juan, where the tall eucalyptus and waving pepper trees gave an air of majesty to the fine old Mexican town it proved to be.

Then we turn to the north once more and enter another valley, the valley of Santa Clara. The towns become larger and more frequent, the country more developed. Orchards and fruit-groves are frequently seen. At the roadsides, built up on trestles, are great water-tanks that are used for irrigation. I notice that here and there, where the pipes that lead to them have leaked a little, the dark brown soil below has burst into great masses of fresh green grass, while all around is parched and lifeless.

At San JosÉ we find a great fruit-growing centre, and at the same time a beautiful city of many thousand inhabitants. Its streets are lined with palms and its suburbs extend into the orange groves that abound on every hand.

Simultaneously one cylinder starts to misfire, and then another. Soon they are all missing. At intervals they would all chip in for a second or two, and as suddenly chip out again. I smelt magneto trouble.

I also smelt prunes, millions of them. O Californian Prune, how often have I eaten of thy tasty endocarp in far-off England! And here thou art in myriads about me!

I stopped a dozen times, changed plugs, examined leads, and tinkered with the magneto. Evidently there was something the matter inside the magneto. I would trust to luck to get to 'Frisco—only forty miles more.

And thus we continued, sometimes dawdling along at fifteen and then suddenly bursting into full power and shooting along at forty for a minute or two, as Lizzie's peculiar whim would have it. It was annoying, tiring, disheartening, but I felt I should get there. I had long since planned a trip to the Yosemite National Park, returning thence to the north across the border and eastward through Canada back to New York. That little project would certainly never come off. I had had enough already. I made one great big oath to sell Lizzie's carcase for what it would bring in San Francisco. Poor old Lizzie! I pitied her in a way. She must have been born with a curse on her head. But she would have to go, if only for 100 dollars. Already I began wondering who would get her after we had parted.

After ten miles appeared the southern tip of the great harbour that stretches inland to north and south from San Francisco. This bay is fifty miles long and ten miles wide and forms one of the grandest harbours in the world. All the navies of all the nations of the earth could be comfortably tucked away in a corner of it. The road follows within a few miles of the western shore of this inland sea, and at every few miles are small, fast-growing cities comparable with nothing but their prototypes that cluster around Los Angeles. For here we are absolutely in the centre of the wine-making district. Sixty years ago cuttings and rooted vines of every variety found in Europe were brought to California and planted, mostly around this great bay of San Francisco, where the frequent sea-fogs contribute so much to the maintenance of perfect conditions for the growing of vines. They flourished, and now we have MÉdocs and Sauternes and Moselles and countless others from California, as well as from France.

For miles and miles we see nothing but vineyards and fruit-groves. There is no fence, no ditch, no railing. The orange trees and plum trees fringe the very road. It is not possible to say where one estate ends and another begins. The owners probably know.

The towns are now so thick that with them also it is difficult to say where one ends and another begins. Only another fifteen miles! Poor old Lizzie, she may peg out altogether.

But no. She keeps at it. Sometimes she ceases firing altogether, but only for a moment. On she goes again, now on one, now on four cylinders. Hey ho! We shall get there all right.

'Buses and cars in hundreds pass in both directions. We shall soon be in 'Frisco now.

Tram-lines appear and then trams. Trolley-cars, they call them in America. 'Frisco at last!

I dodge in and out of the traffic as best I may. It is very thick indeed, and in very much of a hurry. I sail down Market Street, the "Strand" of San Francisco. What matter if Lizzie clatters and rattles and stops and shoots on again? She has brought me here. And as I say so, the little indicator on the speedometer moves to 4,950. Just 50 miles short of 5,000 from New York! Gee! it seems like an extract from another life, that departure from far-off New York. And how long? Three months? It feels like twelve at the least!

I found the post office and sang out for mail. Sure enough there was some—forwarded from Cincinnati. I learnt for the first time that the detailed "Schedules" that I had dispatched three months ago at New York had not yet reached England. Hence the reason for the seeming unkindliness of the Post Office en route. But where were they? I was not to know until a week after my return to England, when they arrived suddenly, without any warning, and simultaneously, to all my friends and relatives there. They had been all round British East Africa; Heaven and the New York postal authorities alone know why! I had not counted on such waywardness on their part when in my innocence of American ways I had dropped them in the post-box at New York.

Thus ends my tale of woe. It is a strange thing, but nevertheless true, that now I have done with it and written about it and done with writing about it, I still think what a glorious trip it was and what a perfect ass I was to do it, and what a still greater ass I was to say anything about it!