Our Italy

CHAPTER III

EARLY VICISSITUDES.—PRODUCTIONS.—SANITARY CLIMATE

Southern California has rapidly passed through varied experiences, and has not yet had a fair chance to show the world what it is. It had its period of romance, of pastoral life, of lawless adventure, of crazy speculation, all within a hundred years, and it is just now entering upon its period of solid, civilized development. A certain light of romance is cast upon this coast by the Spanish voyagers of the sixteenth century, but its history begins with the establishment of the chain of Franciscan missions, the first of which was founded by the great Father Junipero Serra at San Diego in 1769. The fathers brought with them the vine and the olive, reduced the savage Indians to industrial pursuits, and opened the way for that ranchero and adobe civilization which, down to the coming of the American, in about 1840, made in this region the most picturesque life that our continent has ever seen. Following this is a period of desperado adventure and revolution, of pioneer State-building; and then the advent of the restless, the cranky, the invalid, the fanatic, from every other State in the Union. The first experimenters in making homes seem to have fancied that they had come to a ready-made elysium—the idle man's heaven. They seem to have brought with them little knowledge of agriculture or horticulture, were ignorant of the conditions of success in this soil and climate, and left behind the good industrial maxims of the East. The result was a period of chance experiment, one in which extravagant expectation and boasting to some extent took the place of industry. The imagination was heated by the novelty of such varied and rapid productiveness. Men's minds were inflamed by the apparently limitless possibilities. The invalid and the speculator thronged the transcontinental roads leading thither. In this condition the frenzy of 1886-87 was inevitable. I saw something of it in the winter of 1887. The scenes then daily and commonplace now read like the wildest freaks of the imagination.

The bubble collapsed as suddenly as it expanded. Many were ruined, and left the country. More were merely ruined in their great expectations. The speculation was in town lots. When it subsided it left the climate as it was, the fertility as it was, and the value of arable land not reduced. Marvellous as the boom was, I think the present recuperation is still more wonderful. In 1890, to be sure, I miss the bustle of the cities, and the creation of towns in a week under the hammer of the auctioneer. But in all the cities, and most of the villages, there has been growth in substantial buildings, and in the necessities of civic life—good sewerage, water supply, and general organization; while the country, as the acreage of vines and oranges, wheat and barley, grain and corn, and the shipments by rail testify, has improved more than at any other period, and commerce is beginning to feel the impulse of a genuine prosperity, based upon the intelligent cultivation of the ground. School-houses have multiplied; libraries have been founded; many "boom" hotels, built in order to sell city lots in the sage-brush, have been turned into schools and colleges.

There is immense rivalry between different sections. Every Californian thinks that the spot where his house stands enjoys the best climate and is the most fertile in the world; and while you are with him you think he is justified in his opinion; for this rivalry is generally a wholesome one, backed by industry. I do not mean to say that the habit of tall talk is altogether lost. Whatever one sees he is asked to believe is the largest and best in the world. The gentleman of the whip who showed us some of the finest places in Los Angeles—places that in their wealth of flowers and semi-tropical gardens would rouse the enthusiasm of the most jaded traveller—was asked whether there were any finer in the city. "Finer? Hundreds of them;" and then, meditatively and regretfully, "I should not dare to show you the best." The semi-ecclesiastical custodian of the old adobe mission of San Gabriel explained to us the twenty portraits of apostles on the walls, all done by Murillo. As they had got out of repair, he had them all repainted by the best artist. "That one," he said, simply, "cost ten dollars. It often costs more to repaint a picture than to buy an original."

The temporary evils in the train of the "boom" are fast disappearing. I was told that I should find the country stagnant. Trade, it is true, is only slowly coming in, real-estate deals are sleeping, but in all avenues of solid prosperity and productiveness the country is the reverse of stagnant. Another misapprehension this visit is correcting. I was told not to visit Southern California at this season on account of the heat. But I have no experience of a more delightful summer climate than this, especially on or near the coast.

AVENUE LOS ANGELES.

In secluded valleys in the interior the thermometer rises in the daytime to 85°, 90°, and occasionally 100°, but I have found no place in them where there was not daily a refreshing breeze from the ocean, where the dryness of the air did not make the heat seem much less than it was, and where the nights were not agreeably cool. My belief is that the summer climate of Southern California is as desirable for pleasure-seekers, for invalids, for workmen, as its winter climate. It seems to me that a coast temperature 60° to 75°, stimulating, without harshness or dampness, is about the perfection of summer weather. It should be said, however, that there are secluded valleys which become very hot in the daytime in midsummer, and intolerably dusty. The dust is the great annoyance everywhere. It gives the whole landscape an ashy tint, like some of our Eastern fields and way-sides in a dry August. The verdure and the wild flowers of the rainy season disappear entirely. There is, however, some picturesque compensation for this dust and lack of green. The mountains and hills and great plains take on wonderful hues of brown, yellow, and red.

I write this paragraph in a high chamber in the Hotel del Coronado, on the great and fertile beach in front of San Diego. It is the 2d of June. Looking southward, I see the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean, sparkling in the sun as blue as the waters at Amalfi. A low surf beats along the miles and miles of white sand continually, with the impetus of far-off seas and trade-winds, as it has beaten for thousands of years, with one unending roar and swish, and occasional shocks of sound as if of distant thunder on the shore. Yonder, to the right, Point Loma stretches its sharp and rocky promontory into the ocean, purple in the sun, bearing a light-house on its highest elevation. From this signal, bending in a perfect crescent, with a silver rim, the shore sweeps around twenty-five miles to another promontory running down beyond Tia Juana to the Point of Rocks, in Mexican territory. Directly in front—they say eighteen miles away, I think five sometimes, and sometimes a hundred—lie the islands of Coronado, named, I suppose, from the old Spanish adventurer Vasques de Coronado, huge bulks of beautiful red sandstone, uninhabited and barren, becalmed there in the changing blue of sky and sea, like enormous mastless galleons, like degraded icebergs, like Capri and Ischia. They say that they are stationary. I only know that when I walk along the shore towards Point Loma they seem to follow, until they lie opposite the harbor entrance, which is close by the promontory; and that when I return, they recede and go away towards Mexico, to which they belong. Sometimes, as seen from the beach, owing to the difference in the humidity of the strata of air over the ocean, they seem smaller at the bottom than at the top. Occasionally they come quite near, as do the sea-lions and the gulls, and again they almost fade out of the horizon in a violet light. This morning they stand away, and the fleet of white-sailed fishing-boats from the Portuguese hamlet of La Playa, within the harbor entrance, which is dancing off Point Loma, will have a long sail if they pursue the barracuda to those shadowy rocks.

We crossed the bay the other day, and drove up a wild road to the height of the promontory, and along its narrow ridge to the light-house. This site commands one of the most remarkable views in the accessible civilized world, one of the three or four really great prospects which the traveller can recall, astonishing in its immensity, interesting in its peculiar details. The general features are the great ocean, blue, flecked with sparkling, breaking wavelets, and the wide, curving coast-line, rising into mesas, foot-hills, ranges on ranges of mountains, the faintly seen snow-peaks of San Bernardino and San Jacinto to the Cuyamaca and the flat top of Table Mountain in Mexico. Directly under us on one side are the fields of kelp, where the whales come to feed in winter; and on the other is a point of sand on Coronado Beach, where a flock of pelicans have assembled after their day's fishing, in which occupation they are the rivals of the Portuguese. The perfect crescent of the ocean beach is seen, the singular formation of North and South Coronado Beach, the entrance to the harbor along Point Loma, and the spacious inner bay, on which lie San Diego and National City, with lowlands and heights outside sprinkled with houses, gardens, orchards, and vineyards. The near hills about this harbor are varied in form and poetic in color, one of them, the conical San Miguel, constantly recalling Vesuvius. Indeed, the near view, in color, vegetation, and forms of hills and extent of arable land, suggests that of Naples, though on analysis it does not resemble it. If San Diego had half a million of people it would be more like it; but the Naples view is limited, while this stretches away to the great mountains that overlook the Colorado Desert. It is certainly one of the loveliest prospects in the world, and worth long travel to see.

Standing upon this point of view, I am reminded again of the striking contrasts and contiguous different climates on the coast. In the north, of course not visible from here, is Mount Whitney, on the borders of Inyo County and of the State of Nevada, 15,086 feet above the sea, the highest peak in the United States, excluding Alaska. South of it is Grayback, in the San Bernardino range, 11,000 feet in altitude, the highest point above its base in the United States. While south of that is the depression in the Colorado Desert in San Diego County, about three hundred feet below the level of the Pacific Ocean, the lowest land in the United States. These three exceptional points can be said to be almost in sight of each other.

I have insisted so much upon the Mediterranean character of this region that it is necessary to emphasize the contrasts also. Reserving details and comments on different localities as to the commercial value of products and climatic conditions, I will make some general observations. I am convinced that the fig can not only be grown here in sufficient quantity to supply our markets, but of the best quality. The same may be said of the English walnut. This clean and handsome tree thrives wonderfully in large areas, and has no enemies. The olive culture is in its infancy, but I have never tasted better oil than that produced at Santa Barbara and on San Diego Bay. Specimens of the pickled olive are delicious, and when the best varieties are generally grown, and the best method of curing is adopted, it will be in great demand, not as a mere relish, but as food. The raisin is produced in all the valleys of Southern California, and in great quantities in the hot valley of San Joaquin, beyond the Sierra Madre range. The best Malaga raisins, which have the reputation of being the best in the world, may never come to our market, but I have never eaten a better raisin for size, flavor, and thinness of skin than those raised in the El Cajon Valley, which is watered by the great flume which taps a reservoir in the Cuyamaca Mountains, and supplies San Diego. But the quality of the raisin in California will be improved by experience in cultivation and handling.

The contrast with the Mediterranean region—I refer to the western basin—is in climate. There is hardly any point along the French and Italian coast that is not subject to great and sudden changes, caused by the north wind, which has many names, or in the extreme southern peninsula and islands by the sirocco. There are few points that are not reached by malaria, and in many resorts—and some of them most sunny and agreeable to the invalid—the deadliest fevers always lie in wait. There is great contrast between summer and winter, and exceeding variability in the same month. This variability is the parent of many diseases of the lungs, the bowels, and the liver. It is demonstrated now by long-continued observations that dampness and cold are not so inimical to health as variability.

The Southern California climate is an anomaly. It has been the subject of a good deal of wonder and a good deal of boasting, but it is worthy of more scientific study than it has yet received. Its distinguishing feature I take to be its equability. The temperature the year through is lower than I had supposed, and the contrast is not great between the summer and the winter months. The same clothing is appropriate, speaking generally, for the whole year. In all seasons, including the rainy days of the winter months, sunshine is the rule. The variation of temperature between day and night is considerable, but if the new-comer exercises a little care, he will not be unpleasantly affected by it. There are coast fogs, but these are not chilling and raw. Why it is that with the hydrometer showing a considerable humidity in the air the general effect of the climate is that of dryness, scientists must explain. The constant exchange of desert airs with the ocean air may account for the anomaly, and the actual dryness of the soil, even on the coast, is put forward as another explanation. Those who come from heated rooms on the Atlantic may find the winters cooler than they expect, and those used to the heated terms of the Mississippi Valley and the East will be surprised at the cool and salubrious summers. A land without high winds or thunder-storms may fairly be said to have a unique climate.

I suppose it is the equability and not conditions of dampness or dryness that renders this region so remarkably exempt from epidemics and endemic diseases. The diseases of children prevalent elsewhere are unknown here; they cut their teeth without risk, and cholera infantum never visits them. Diseases of the bowels are practically unknown. There is no malaria, whatever that may be, and consequently an absence of those various fevers and other disorders which are attributed to malarial conditions. Renal diseases are also wanting; disorders of the liver and kidneys, and Bright's disease, gout, and rheumatism, are not native. The climate in its effect is stimulating, but at the same time soothing to the nerves, so that if "nervous prostration" is wanted, it must be brought here, and cannot be relied on to continue long. These facts are derived from medical practice with the native Indian and Mexican population. Dr. Remondino, to whom I have before referred, has made the subject a study for eighteen years, and later I shall offer some of the results of his observations upon longevity. It is beyond my province to venture any suggestion upon the effect of the climate upon deep-seated diseases, especially of the respiratory organs, of invalids who come here for health. I only know that we meet daily and constantly so many persons in fair health who say that it is impossible for them to live elsewhere that the impression is produced that a considerable proportion of the immigrant population was invalid. There are, however, two suggestions that should be made. Care is needed in acclimation to a climate that differs from any previous experience; and the locality that will suit any invalid can only be determined by personal experience. If the coast does not suit him, he may be benefited in a protected valley, or he may be improved on the foot-hills, or on an elevated mesa, or on a high mountain elevation.

One thing may be regarded as settled. Whatever the sensibility or the peculiarity of invalidism, the equable climate is exceedingly favorable to the smooth working of the great organic functions of respiration, digestion, and circulation.

It is a pity to give this chapter a medical tone. One need not be an invalid to come here and appreciate the graciousness of the air; the color of the landscape, which is wanting in our Northern clime; the constant procession of flowers the year through; the purple hills stretching into the sea; the hundreds of hamlets, with picturesque homes overgrown with roses and geranium and heliotrope, in the midst of orange orchards and of palms and magnolias, in sight of the snow-peaks of the giant mountain ranges which shut in this land of marvellous beauty.

CHAPTER IV

THE WINTER OF OUR CONTENT

California is the land of the Pine and the Palm. The tree of the Sierras, native, vigorous, gigantic, and the tree of the Desert, exotic, supple, poetic, both flourish within the nine degrees of latitude. These two, the widely separated lovers of Heine's song, symbolize the capacities of the State, and although the sugar-pine is indigenous, and the date-palm, which will never be more than an ornament in this hospitable soil, was planted by the Franciscan Fathers, who established a chain of missions from San Diego to Monterey over a century ago, they should both be the distinction of one commonwealth, which, in its seven hundred miles of indented sea-coast, can boast the climates of all countries and the products of all zones.

If this State of mountains and valleys were divided by an east and west line, following the general course of the Sierra Madre range, and cutting off the eight lower counties, I suppose there would be conceit enough in either section to maintain that it only is the Paradise of the earth, but both are necessary to make the unique and contradictory California which fascinates and bewilders the traveller. He is told that the inhabitants of San Francisco go away from the draught of the Golden Gate in the summer to get warm, and yet the earliest luscious cherries and apricots which he finds in the far south market of San Diego come from the Northern Santa Clara Valley. The truth would seem to be that in an hour's ride in any part of the State one can change his climate totally at any time of the year, and this not merely by changing his elevation, but by getting in or out of the range of the sea or the desert currents of air which follow the valleys.

To recommend to any one a winter climate is far from the writer's thought. No two persons agree on what is desirable for a winter residence, and the inclination of the same person varies with his state of health. I can only attempt to give some idea of what is called the winter months in Southern California, to which my observations mainly apply. The individual who comes here under the mistaken notion that climate ever does anything more than give nature a better chance, may speedily or more tardily need the service of an undertaker; and the invalid whose powers are responsive to kindly influences may live so long, being unable to get away, that life will be a burden to him. The person in ordinary health will find very little that is hostile to the orderly organic processes. In order to appreciate the winter climate of Southern California one should stay here the year through, and select the days that suit his idea of winter from any of the months. From the fact that the greatest humidity is in the summer and the least in the winter months, he may wear an overcoat in July in a temperature, according to the thermometer, which in January would render the overcoat unnecessary. It is dampness that causes both cold and heat to be most felt. The lowest temperatures, in Southern California generally, are caused only by the extreme dryness of the air; in the long nights of December and January there is a more rapid and longer continued radiation of heat. It must be a dry and clear night that will send the temperature down to thirty-four degrees. But the effect of the sun upon this air is instantaneous, and the cold morning is followed at once by a warm forenoon; the difference between the average heat of July and the average cold of January, measured by the thermometer, is not great in the valleys, foot-hills, and on the coast. Five points give this result of average for January and July respectively: Santa Barbara, 52°, 66°; San Bernardino, 51°, 70°; Pomona, 52°, 68°; Los Angeles, 52°, 67°; San Diego, 53°, 66°. The day in the winter months is warmer in the interior and the nights are cooler than on the coast, as shown by the following figures for January: 7 a.m., Los Angeles, 46.5°; San Diego, 47.5°; 3 p.m., Los Angeles, 65.2°; San Diego, 60.9°. In the summer the difference is greater. In June I saw the thermometer reach 103° in Los Angeles when it was only 79° in San Diego. But I have seen the weather unendurable in New York with a temperature of 85°, while this dry heat of 103° was not oppressive. The extraordinary equanimity of the coast climate (certainly the driest marine climate in my experience) will be evident from the average mean for each month, from records of sixteen years, ending in 1877, taken at San Diego, giving each month in order, beginning with January: 53.5°, 54.7°, 56.0°, 58.2°, 60.2°, 64.6°, 67.1°, 69.0°, 66.7°, 62.9°, 58.1°, 56.0°. In the year 1877 the mean temperature at 3 p.m. at San Diego was as follows, beginning with January: 60.9°, 57.7°, 62.4°, 63.3°, 66.3°, 68.5°, 69.6°, 69.6°, 69.5°, 69.6°, 64.4°, 60.5°. For the four months of July, August, September, and October there was hardly a shade of difference at 3 p.m. The striking fact in all the records I have seen is that the difference of temperature in the daytime between summer and winter is very small, the great difference being from midnight to just before sunrise, and this latter difference is greater inland than on the coast. There are, of course, frost and ice in the mountains, but the frost that comes occasionally in the low inland valleys is of very brief duration in the morning hour, and rarely continues long enough to have a serious effect upon vegetation.

In considering the matter of temperature, the rule for vegetation and for invalids will not be the same. A spot in which delicate flowers in Southern California bloom the year round may be too cool for many invalids. It must not be forgotten that the general temperature here is lower than that to which most Eastern people are accustomed. They are used to living all winter in overheated houses, and to protracted heated terms rendered worse by humidity in the summer. The dry, low temperature of the California winter, notwithstanding its perpetual sunshine, may seem, therefore, wanting to them in direct warmth. It may take a year or two to acclimate them to this more equable and more refreshing temperature.

Neither on the coast nor in the foot-hills will the invalid find the climate of the Riviera or of Tangier—not the tramontane wind of the former, nor the absolutely genial but somewhat enervating climate of the latter. But it must be borne in mind that in this, our Mediterranean, the seeker for health or pleasure can find almost any climate (except the very cold or the very hot), down to the minutest subdivision. He may try the dry marine climate of the coast, or the temperature of the fruit lands and gardens from San Bernardino to Los Angeles, or he may climb to any altitude that suits him in the Sierra Madre or the San Jacinto ranges. The difference may be all-important to him between a valley and a mesa which is not a hundred feet higher; nay, between a valley and the slope of a foot-hill, with a shifting of not more than fifty feet elevation, the change may be as marked for him as it is for the most sensitive young fruit-tree. It is undeniable, notwithstanding these encouraging "averages," that cold snaps, though rare, do come occasionally, just as in summer there will occur one or two or three continued days of intense heat. And in the summer in some localities—it happened in June, 1890, in the Santiago hills in Orange County—the desert sirocco, blowing over the Colorado furnace, makes life just about unendurable for days at a time. Yet with this dry heat sunstroke is never experienced, and the diseases of the bowels usually accompanying hot weather elsewhere are unknown. The experienced traveller who encounters unpleasant weather, heat that he does not expect, cold that he did not provide for, or dust that deprives him of his last atom of good-humor, and is told that it is "exceptional," knows exactly what that word means. He is familiar with the "exceptional" the world over, and he feels a sort of compassion for the inhabitants who have not yet learned the adage, "Good wine needs no bush." Even those who have bought more land than they can pay for can afford to tell the truth.