A Truthful Woman in Southern California | Page 5

of the New England farmers, what is the cultivation of
orchards but playing in the sand with golden oranges? Some one says
that Californians "irrigate, cultivate, and exaggerate."
Charles Nordhoff, the veteran journalist and author, lives within sight

of the hotel (which he pronounces the most perfect and charming hotel
he knows of in Europe or America), in a rambling bungalow consisting
of three small cottages moved from different points and made into one.
He believes in California for "health, pleasure, and residence." It is a
rare privilege to listen to his conversation, sitting by his open fire or at
his library table, or when he is entertaining friends at dinner.
So ends my sketch of Coronado. Coronado! What a perfect word!
Musical, euphonious, regal, "the crowned"! The name of the governor
of New Galicia, and captain-general of the Spanish army, sent forth in
1540 in search of the seven cities of Cibola. General J. H. Simpson, U.
S. A., has written a valuable monograph on "Coronado's March," which
can be found in the Smithsonian Report for 1869.
I intend to avoid statistics and history on the one side, and extravagant
eulogy on the other.
Now we will say good-by to our new friends, take one more look at
Point Loma, and cross the ferry to San Diego.
CHAPTER III.
SAN DIEGO.
"The truly magnificent, and--with reason--famous port of San
Diego."--From the first letter of Father Junipero in Alto California.
Fifteen cents for motor, ferry, and car will take you to Hotel Florence,
on the heights overlooking the bay, where I advise you to stop. The
Horton House is on an open, sunny site, and is frequented by
"transients" and business men of moderate means. The Brewster is a
first-class hotel, with excellent table. The Florence is not a large
boarding-house or family hotel, but open for all. It has a friendly,
homelike atmosphere, without the exactions of an ultra-fashionable
resort. The maximum January temperature is seventy-four degrees,
while that of July is seventy-nine degrees, and invalid guests at this
house wear the same weight clothing in summer that they do in winter.
The rooms of this house are all sunny, and each has a charming ocean

or mountain view. It is easy to get there; hard to go away. Arriving
from Coronado Beach, I was reminded of the Frenchman who married
a quiet little home body after a desperate flirtation with a brilliant
society queen full of tyrannical whims and capricious demands. When
this was commented on as surprising, he explained that after playing
with a squirrel one likes to take a cat in his lap. Really, it is so restful
that the building suggests a big yellow tabby purring sleepily in the
sunshine. I sat on the veranda, or piazza, taking a sun-bath, in a happy
dream or doze, until the condition of nirvana was almost attained. What
day of the week was it? And the season? Who could tell? And who
cares? Certainly no one has the energy to decide it. Last year, going
there to spend one day, I remained for five weeks, hypnotized by my
environments--beguiled, deluded, unconscious of the flight of time,
serenely happy. Many come for a season, and wake up after five or six
years to find it is now their home. "There seems to exist in this country
a something which cheats the senses; whether it be in the air, the
sunshine, or in the ocean breeze, or in all three combined, I cannot say.
Certainly the climate is not the home-made common-sense article of
the anti-Rocky Mountain States; and unreality is thrown round life--all
walk and work in a dream."
At Coronado Beach one rushes out after breakfast for an all-day
excursion or morning tramp; here one sits and sits, always intending to
go somewhere or do something, until the pile of unanswered letters
accumulates and the projected trips weary one in a dim perspective. It
is all so beautiful, so new, so wonderful! San Diego is the Naples of
America, with the San Jacinto Mountains for a background and the blue
sunlit bay to gaze upon, and one of the finest harbors in the world. Yet
with all this, few have the energy even to go a-fishing.
Now, as a truthful "tourist," I must admit that in the winter there are
many days when the sun does not shine, and the rainy season is not
altogether cheerful for the invalid and the stranger. Sunshine, glorious
golden sunshine, is what we want all the time; but we do not get it. I
noticed that during the heavy rains the invalids retired to their rooms,
overcome by the chill and dampness, and some were seriously ill. But
then they would have been in their graves if they had remained in the

East. There are