Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-05-01
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
Its People, Mountains, CanOnS, Water
Falls, Deserts, and Towns.
A Glowing Description.
Special Correspondence to The Chronicle.


The peach bloom is on the cheek of
Southern California. The dress of mother
earth is dazzling green, brocaded with
pOppies and sweet wild heliotrOpe The
voices in the air speak of softly flowing
waterfalls in banked canons The
/ fleecy clouds are tossed up over the noun
tain top by the cold but adoring north
wind and in a word, Southern California
is simply indescribable in its loveliness.
To one coming in the country in OctO-
/ Der, as did the writer, there is bitter dis
appointment the blazing sun bringing
out every barren peak in the most barren
of barren mountains, not blade of grass
| to be seen anywhere, and dust half-foOt
thick.
My first entrance into California
brought me into the Mojave Desert. Here
it must have been 100 in the shade, and
all the shade there was came from the
prickles of ten-foot cactus every half
mile An Indian village, the Needles, y
is the first approach to the Desert. Here
you can become acquainted with half
naked, miserable creatures known as the
Mojave Indians, who have been driven
back from the coast by the element of
civilization, which is playing such havoc
with the natural beauties in the valleys
and canOns of the Golden State.
There were mountain fiTes-hot winds
off the Desert, and then came the rain
rain such as never was heard of in Cali
fOrnia before, running crops and doing
great damage. This was my first impress
sion of glorious California.
But after the rain great surprises dawn
ed upon the "tender-foot" The grass
grew, and the weeds especially, at most
alarming rate. On my uncle's bean ranch
before they could get them plOwed under,
the weeds grew higher than the horses
heads Both the wild and the cultivated
flowers began to blossom afresh, almost
bewildering one in their profusiOn hill
side and plain one mass of golden wealth.
rich in California poppies.
Never in California does one lose sight
of the mountain ranges, and what con-
slant delight it is to one who is lover of
nature, studying the lights and shadows
as they fall Never do they look twice
alike, always grand and sometimes sub
lime in their grandeur. There is some
thing awful in the beauty of an unfre-
quented waterfall, called the Echo Falls,
where party of US picniced one day in
February. \ cavalcade of eighteen
young people started up the Santa Paula
canon and fifteen miles back in the noun
tains, through the Ferndale ranch (where
the ferns grow as high as your head and
through the Echo canon, we at last found
this wild, beautiful spot. 1t was pretty
tough pulling through the chaparal, and
down precipices and over swollen streams,
but our steeds were noble (by the way,
they have fine riding horses out here in
California;, and carried us all in safety to
our picnic place. Here we dismounted
and walked about half mile, and then
what clambering, tugging, climbing,
falling, jumping and shouting as there
was one does not often hear. At the top
of the falls at last we all sat watching
show the water comes down at Lodore,"
hurting pebbles and rocks into the foam
ing cataract, and shouting for the echo
until we were hoarse. RattleSnakes and
tarantulaS were my constant terror, but
luckily the day passed with no such "ani-
mails putting i'll an appearance.
But | did not intend to write of the
many excursions and numerous jaunts
we take, back in canOnS and up to the
mountain peaks, ETC., for of course all
that is part of the Californian's very
existence. Without the novelty, the fresh
delights of scenery, and the glorious eli
mate, he thinks life not worth the living.
This is country of constant delights and
surprises always something new and
something beautiful in view.
Los Angeles, the City of Angels. One
hundred years ago the soft, rolling, tree
less hills and valleys through which the
Los Angeles river now takes its Shilly
shally course Seaward, were forest slopes
and meadows with lakes both great and
small This abundance of trees, with
shining water playing among them, added
to the limitleSS bloom of the plains and
the splendOr of the snow-topped noun
tainS, must have made the whole region
indeed paradise.
The tale of the founding of the city
could be better fashioned into song, so
quaint and romantic is it that prose can
scarcely express it-hOw twelve devout
Spanish soldiers planted the flag of Spain,
unfurled the banner, "NueStra Sonora
Reina de Los Angeles Our Lady the
Queen of the Angels, and the new town
" as marked out little to the north of
the present plaza of Los Angeles.
For the first forty years of its existence
the city of the Queen of Angels must
have been a happy spOt-the Spanish
soldiers and their families living in a
peaceful content in their adobe huts
which were about eight feet high, with
roofs of reed and asphaltum. They did
no work, these easy-gOing Spaniards
neither the Spaniard nor his son, nor his
SONS after him.
The City of the Angels is prosperous
city now 1t has 100000 inhabitants, a
busy business thOroughfare, fine build
ings of brick and stone, but great deal
of cheap, SNOWY architecture. 1t has not
yet buried its past, for certain indefina
BILE. delicious aroma from the old, ignor-
ant times fingers still, not only in the by
ways and corners, but in the very centerS
of its newest activities. The soft Spanish
speech is continually heard. Mexican
women, bareheaded or their bright eyes
glistening out from the folds of shawl,
glide about everywhere. LOng-robed
Spanish priests hurry to and fro, and at
each dawn ancient, jangling bells from
the church of Our Lady of the Angels,
which fronts on Chinatown, ring out the
night and in the day. Vendors of strange
commodities drive through the streets,
and antiquated carts, piled high with
oranges, their golden wealth contrasting
weirdly with the evident poverty of the
owners.
There is a peculiar fascination about
these living memories of the early times
of California. Soon they will all be gone,
even the memory of them, for they are
fast disappearing to give place to the
ever incoming tide of Improvement and
advance The grand ruins of the Old