The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1876-01-01


Even the uncultiyatcd hills and road
sides clothc themselves in u new dress,
and appear in the most vivid green Of
the aliilleria, II native herb, which has n
leaf much like young tNnsy smells like
musk, and is the iayoritc grazing food
Of flocks.
RESTING UNDER THE VINES,
Four miles from Santa Barbara we
pass one of its pretty suburbs, Monticito,
which the lips of our young Spanard
pronounce Mon-tee.See-to, with halt be-
tween the syllables and clinging soft
ness to the long sound OF the !, which is
peculiarly musical A halfmile beyond
this little village we see a sign "The big
grape vine" Our spanking four IN
hand is rcmed up with grand flourish
in front of the onestory wooden house,
set near the road and surrounded by
cactus trees and pretty flower garden,
but conveying no sign or token of the
presence of one of the wonders Of the
world. We are admitted to the house
by its owner, and conducted to the
garden in the rear Of the residence,
where we see the skeleton arbor from
which the old mammoth vine has been
lately removed to grace the Centennial
halt This old vine covered an area Of
ten thousand square feet; its diameter
three feet from the ground was fourteen
inches and eight feet from the ground
it was five and one-half feet in cidcum-
| al
riding switch of young Spanish lady,
presented by her lover, planted by her
own brown hand, and watched over by
her till her death, in 1863 at which time
she had attained the great age of one
hundred and ten years The vine is
one hundred years old. We entered
the old adobe house, in which once
dwclt this famous Senorita Marie Mar
celina de Domcnesquc. The house is
fast going to decay, 1t is used as II
granary, and the smooth earthen floor
is covered by yellow corn. The young
vine, now the largest bearing vine in
the world is but sixteen ycart old, and
already rivals the old one in size, its
area being nine thousand square feet ;
its diameter, three feet from the ground
sixteen inches; bears from five to six
tons of grapes annually the lunches
weighing from one to five pounds each
The grapes ripen in August and last UNI
til the middle of January, Last year
five hundred visitors left their names in
the grapevine register
Would our friends at home could
have seen the little Kentucky group as
we rested under this famous vine and
plucked grapes from the dropping
limbs; the good old Methodist bishop,
seated in an arm chair, his hat and cane
resting ON another chair, and a table
piled with fresh grapes drawn to his ell
bow, the thick, leafy roof of the arbor
shading him, and the warm air running
its light fingers over the foliage. Out
side this shady canopy the sunlight lies
warm and glowing on the valley and
the sparkling sea- The bishop turns
his eyes slowly to the mountains, which
rise steep and grand from the very
border Of this arbor; looks silently
at their peaks, standing sharp against
the clear sky; then his gaze wanders
over the garden, the grape-vines the
the fig treet, and then turning about,
with his back to the mountains and his
face to the sea, he runs his eyes over
the valley farms and fields intervening
and spread along the shores of the Pa
cifc, watches the feathery breakers,
looks over the blue ocean to the islands
thirty miles away, notes a ship in the
ofiing, and the smoke-wreathes from
a steamer nearing Santa Barbara, fol-
lows with upward glance the flight of
sea-gulls, and rests his gaze upon light
fieecy clouds that are saline under full
spread of canvas over the upper deep
then turning to me said, earnestly with
voice and face filled with emotion: "Sit-
ter, this is wonderful. ! have lived
seventy-iour years in this beautiful
world, and it seems to me Inever saw
so perfect a landscape, nor felt so mild
yet so fresh an air | have never felt
so strongly the majesty and glory and
mercy of Almighty God. cannot inn
agne all this beauty and magnifcence
AS chance work | love to think of this
earth as made by an intelligent and
omniscient Deity, who, at the feet of
the grand mountains (pointing as he
spoke), spread the hower-decked valley,
and, in sight of the briny deep, rounded
the emerald hills. y