A Truthful Woman in Southern California | Page 6

and should any clouds appear for a moment at the setting of the sun, they display the most beautiful shades of violet, purple, and green."[1]
[Footnote 1: Humboldt had never been in Alta California, and procured this information in Mexico or Spain.]
Now, after reading that, a real rainy day, when the water leaks through the roof and beats in at the doors, makes a depressed invalid feel like a drenched fowl standing forlornly on one leg in the midst of a New England storm. With snow-covered mountains on one side and the ocean with its heavy fogs on the other, and the tedious rain pouring down with gloomy persistence, and consumptives coughing violently, and physicians hurrying in to attend to a sudden hemorrhage or heart-failure, the scene is not wholly gay and inspiriting. But when the sun comes forth again and the flowers (that look to me a little tired of blooming all the time) brighten up with fresh washed faces, and all vegetation rejoices and you can almost see things grow, and the waves dance and glitter, and the mountains no longer look cold and threatening but seem like painted scenery, a la Bierstadt, hung up for our admiration, and the valleys breathe the spicy fragrance of orange blossoms, we are once more happy, and ready to rave a little ourselves over the much-talked-of "bay 'n' climate." But there are dangers even on the sunniest day. I know a young physician who came this year on a semi-professional tour, to try the effects of inhalations on tuberculosis, and it was so delightfully warm that he straightway took off his flannels, was careless about night air, and was down with pneumonia.
The tourist or traveller who writes of San Diego usually knows nothing of it but a week or two in winter or early spring.
Southern California has fifty-two weeks in the year, and for two thirds of this time the weather is superb.
I can imagine even a mission Indian grunting and complaining if taken to our part of the country in the midst of a week's storm. We flee from deadly horrors of climate to be fastidiously critical. If, in midsummer, sweltering sufferers in New York or Chicago could be transported to this land they would not hurry away. The heat is rarely above eighty-five degrees, and nearly always mitigated by a refreshing breeze from the bay. I am assured that there have not been five nights in as many years when one or more blankets have not been necessary for comfort. In summer everything is serene. No rain, no thunder-storms, no hail, or water-spouts. (The dust pest is never spoken of!) The picnic can be arranged three weeks ahead without an anxious thought about the weather. The summer sunsets are marvellously beautiful.
One must summer and winter here before he can judge fairly, and the hyper-sensitive should tarry in New Mexico or in the desert until spring. I believe that rheumatic or neuralgic invalids should avoid the damp resorts to which they are constantly flocking only to be dissatisfied. Every sort of climate can be found in the State, so that no one has the right to grumble.
Do not take off flannels, although the perspiration does trickle down the side of your face as you sit in the sun. A fur cape is always needed to protect one shoulder from a chilling breeze while the other side is toasted. It is not safe for new-comers to be out-of-doors after four or five o'clock in the afternoon, nor must they ride in open cars except in the middle of the day. These innocent diversions give the doctors their support.
Bill Nye, with his usual good sense, refused to drive in a pouring rain to view the scenery and orchards when visiting San Diego in March, and says: "Orange orchards are rare and beautiful sights, but when I can sit in this warm room, gathered about a big coal fire, and see miles of them from the window, why should I put on my fur overcoat and a mackintosh in order to freeze and cry out with assumed delight every half-mile while I gradually get Pomona of the lungs?"
There are many places worth visiting if you can rouse yourselves for the effort. Point Loma, twelve miles distant, gives a wonderful view, one of the finest in the world. I warrant you will be so famished on arriving that you will empty every lunch-basket before attending to the outlook. National City, Sweet Water Dam, Tia Juana (Aunt Jane), La Jolla--you will hear of all these. I have tried them and will report.
The Kimball brothers, Warren and Frank, who came from New Hampshire twenty-five years ago and devoted their energies to planting orchards of oranges, lemons, and olives, have made the desert bloom, and found the business