Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-11-26
THESE BALMY DAYS,

Winter Weather in Sunny
Southern California.
GREEN FIELDS IN NOVEMBER.
A Sunday Ride in Los Angeles County
Amid Springing Grasses and
Singing Birds.
An English poet singing OF the dreary
aspect of the landscape in his rain
soaked island, where November suns
rise late and set early, and are OBJ
scured by tog even when above the
horizon, has this melancholy line:
Fades DER the moor the brief November day.
One OF tile sweetest singers in the
American poetical Israel, William Cullen
Bryant, complains that
The melancholy days have come
The saddest of the year,
Ofwailing winds ard naked woods,
And meadows brown and sere.
He was painting November scene in
the Atlantic States. The present week
brings Thanksgiving Day, and as nearly
all who will read this were born east of
the Rocky Mountains, IAN old-time Thanks
giving Day will be fresh in their minds.
Among the memories that cluster around
the feast few are more universal or more
delightful than that of the first skate OF
the season. Along the rivers or near the
ponds were here and there few frozen
apples hanging on the trees which served
for lunch. In the pantries at home were
frozen cream to regale the appetite after
a long day on the thin ice, and before
the roast turkey and pumpkin pie we're
in order. Such are faithful pictures OF
November days back in the old States.
How very different are
NOVEMBER DAYS IN CALIFORNIA.
Yesterday HERALD man rode from
10 O'Clock A. NJ. until 6 p. M, traversipg
not less than thirty-fve miles in all.
The road lay out of the city along Buena
Vista street and over tie high bridge to
East Los Angeles, thence up the Arroyo
previous day, and OF which four inches
fares Of the city anything but inviting to
the driver. But being an old-timer, he
knew that once out Of the city limits and
all would 60 merry as a marriage bell.
His compignon de voyage was
as the big ruts and deep mudholes just
hn r11 IL
and Buena Vista streets were encoun-
tered. Poor thing! She was accus-
toned to the hard, smooth, clean road
bed OF the Golden Gate Avenue San Fran
cisco, and was little prepared for such
Sloughs ef Despond as lay along the line
Of yesterdays pilgrimage at the begin
ming. But once into Hof street, East
Los Angeles, and mud was an
unknown quantity and no ruts
were found to endanger the springs
and wheels of the buggy. 1t is
remarkable, amazing, indeed, to note
| how great progress East Los Angeles
has made in this matter of street-mak-
ing. 1t is far more progressive in this
respect than this side of the river.
Along we sped up the Arroyo Seco to-.
wards Pasadena. And what revelation
it is to see that narrow gorge aligned with
fine residences on either side Of broad,
level, hard road Then, like eagles on
their eyries, the sides of the hills are
dotted with pretty homes up to the very
tops. Getting out from the depths beyond
sycamore grove what sight broke upon
the view! The hills beyond the stream
are covered thick with new springing
grass of the tenderest green, soft and
fresh as the light from an emerald. The
steep sides of the Arroyo Seco above the
toll bridge are hung thick with thousand
low bushes, species of wild laurel all
ablaze with an indescribable wealth of
red berries. Any eye which has seen a
mountain ash or an English holly in
their glory will know just how this
beautiful shrub looks. The sumach in
a western wood in mid-Autumn days
never set the landscape more brilliantly
af1ame than does this California shrub
light up the banks of the deep Arroyo.
So the Sunday tourists bowled along
into Pasadena, and down the long
stretches of Colorado street, with its
alignment of banks, of stores, OF stately
churches, of beautiful homes, of flower
gardens and Of handsome shrubbery.
And everywhere on one side rose the
great mountain ridges high up into the
clouds and so seemingly near in the clear
atmosphere that one was almost tempted
to reach out his hand in hope of touch
ing them; while far below stretched the
San Gabriel valley, rich in resources the
most varied of any spot the sun looks
down upon, studded with hundreds of
happy homes, carpeted with the green
of the new grass and of the barley just
peeping. above the ground, and en-
powered in orange groves or covered by
the low and modest vines, whose grapes
in 50 many forms minister so greatly to
the health, comfort and happiness of
man. Far to the eastward rose the giant
peaks of Antonio, Gorgonio and Jacinto,
capped deep with clustering snow.2
Delighting the eye upon this varied
scene, and the senses otherwise most
gratefully ministered to by the balmiest,
softest, warmest air imaginable, La.
manda Park nesting among the trees
was passed, and then the road lay imme-
diately below the Sierra Madre Villa, and
the Sierra Madre tract. Both spots lie
close up to the base OF the mountain,
which rises sheer as wall be-
hind them. The sun fairly bathed
in warm light the hundreds of
pretty homes below N. G. Carter's
beautiful place whose aspirations are 90
lofty that it seems to be trying to scale
the mountain barrier and overlook the