The record-union., 1892-09-24
III.

| hin 10 suspect that the past eighteen
months of her life had been passed as
CHAPTER III.
! EA MgIM ENERAL TIRED
/ ~ MMNA " built by Spanish
"a Wassss missionaries in the
| 6SgsNN$SK H. y5sixteenth century,
s4-1,ssssSs - ID and in its main
! E2NE4nMs kHsaes5ESS features it was little
| MH$MENzsE2 altered in three hum
| ssSSfSEaV M As9 dred years. In a eli
| E1<S1sSzx@%%XS> mate where there is
| S&sEEtzSEtMW0 no frost walls OF
- ss;assss adobe last as long as
.1sssY granite. The house
consisted, practical
| u ly, OF but one story,
! for although there were rooms under the
| roof, they were used only for storage, no
one slept in them. The plan Of the build
ing was not unlike that OF a train of rail-
way cars, or, it might be more appropri-
ate to say, of emigrant wagons. There
| was series of rooms, ranged in line,
access to them being had from narrow
corridor, which opened on the rear We
randa. Several of the rooms also COM
municated directly with each other, and,
| through low windows, gave on the YER
anda in front, for the house was merely a
| comparatively narrow array of apart
ments between two broad verandas, where
most of the living, including much of the
! sleeping, was done.
Logically, there can be nothing uglier
! than Spanish American dwelling of
this type. But, as matter of fact, they
appear seductively beautiful. The thick,
| white walls acquire certain softness of
tone; the surface scales off here and there,
ana cracks and creyices appear In a
damp country like England they would
| soon be covered with moss, but moss is
not to be had in this region, though one
were to offer for it the price of the silk
velvet, triple ply. which so much resem-
bleS 1t. Nevertheless, there are compen-
| sations. The soil is inexhaustibly fertile,
and its fertility expresses itself in the
| most 1nveterate beauty. Such colors and
varieties of flowers exist nowhere else,
| and they continue all the year round.
| Climbing vines storm the walls and toss
| their green ladders all over it for beauty
TO walk up and down. Huge jars, stand
! ing on the veradas, emit volcanoes of
| lovely blossoms, and vases swung from
the roof drip and overflow with others
| as II water had turned to flowers. In the
garden, which extends over several acres
| at the front of the house, and, as it WERE
| makes it an island in a gorgeous sea of
| petals, there are roses, almonds, oranges,
vines, pomegranates, and a hundred RI
walls whose names are unknown to the
/
triumphantly through the season as the
! symphony moves through changes along
| its central theme.
| Everything that is not an animal, or a
| mineral, seems to be flower. There are
too many flowers, or rather there is not
enough OF anything else. The faculty of
| appreciation wearieS, and at last ceases to
take note. 1t is like conversing with a
person whose every word is an epigram.
| The senses have their limitations, and
! imagination and expectation are half of
| beauty and delight, and the better half,
otherwise we should have no souls A
single violet, discovered by chance in the
| byways of an April forest in New Eng
land, gives pleasure as poignant as, and
more spiritual than, the miles upon miles
of California splendors.
Monotony is the ruling characteristic
monotony of beauty, monotony of DESC
| latlon, monotony even Of variety. The
| glorious blue overhead is monotonous.
| AS for the thermometer it PAGES up and
down within the narrowest limits, like a
prisoner i'll his cell, or a meadow-lark
| hopping to and fro in a seyen-inch cage.
The plan and aspect of the buildings are
monotonous, and so is the way of life of
| those who inhabit them. Fortunately.
the sun does rise and set in Southern Cal
| ifornia, otherwise life there would be at
an absolute Standstill, with no past and
no future. But, as it is, one can look
| forward to morning and remember the
evening.
| Then, there are the not infrequent but
| seldom very destructive earthquakes the
occasional cloudbursts and tornadoes.
sudden and violent as gunpowder ex-
plosion, and finally the astounding con-
trast between the fertile regions and the
desert. There are places where you can
stand with one foot planted in everlasting
sterility and the other in immortal YER
dure. In the midst of an arid and hope
| less waste you come suddenly upon the
brink of a narrow rayine sharply defined
| as II cut out with an ak and packed to the
| brim with enchanting and voluptuous
| fertility; or you will come upon mount
| aims which sweep upward out of burning
death into sumptuous life. When the
| monotony of life meets the monotony of
death Southern California becomes land
of contrasts, and the contrasts themselves
| become monotonouS.
General Trednokes ranch was very
near the borders of these two mighty
forces. An hours easy ride would carry
him to a region as barren and apparently
as irreclaimable as that through which
Childe Roland iourneyed in quest of the
Dark Tower, lying, too, in temperature
so fiery that it coagulated the blood in the
veins and stopped the beating of the
heart. Undertoot were fine dust and
whitened bones; the air was prismatic
and magical, ever con uring up phantom
| pictures whose characteristic was that
they were at the farthest remove from
any possible reality. The azure sky de-
scended and became lake, the pulsa-
tions of the atmosphere translated them
selves in the rhythmic lapse of waves.
| spikes of sagebrush and blades of cactus
became sylvan glades and hamlets cheer
| full with inhabitants. Only all was ST.
| lent and, as you drew near, the scene
trembled, altered and was gonei
Hideous black lizards and horned toads
crawl and hop amid this desolation. and
the deadly little sidewinder rattlesnake
lies basking in the blaze Of sunshine
which it distils into venom. Sometimes
| the level plain is broken up into savage
| ridges and awful canyons, along whose
arid bottoms no water streams. As you
stagger through their chaotic bottoms
! you see vast powders poised overhead
| lettering to a fall, shiver of earthquake,
| breath of hurricane, and they come
crashing and splintering in destruction
| down. Along the sides of these accliyi-
| ties extend long, level lines and burrows.
| marks of where the ocean flowed ages
ago. But sometimes the hills are but ac-
cumulations of desert dust, which shift
| slowly from place to place under the ac-
! ton of the wind, melting away here to be
re-erected yonder, mouuding themselves,
| perhaps, above a living and struggling
| human being, to move forward, anon,
| leaving where he was little heap OF
| withered bones. A fearful place is this