A Truthful Woman in Southern California | Page 7

most profitable. You will like to watch the processes of pickling olives and pressing out the clear amber oil, which is now used by consumptives in preference to the cod-liver oil. Many are rubbed with it daily for increasing flesh. It is delicious for the table, but the profits are small, as cotton-seed oil is much cheaper. Lemons pay better than oranges, Mr. Kimball tells me. Mrs. Flora Kimball has worked side by side with her husband, who is an enthusiast for the rights of woman. She is progressive, and ready to help in every good work, with great executive ability and a hearty appreciation of any good quality in others.
It does not pay to take the trip to Mexico if time is limited, there is so little of Mexico in it. After leaving the train and getting into an omnibus, the voluble darkey in charge soon shouts out, "We are now crossing the line," but as no difference of scene is observed, it is not deeply impressive. One young fellow got out and jumped back and forth over the line, so that if asked on his return if he had been to Mexico he could conscientiously answer, "Oh yes, many times." We were then taken to the custom-house, where we mailed some hastily scribbled letters for the sake of using a Mexican stamp,--some preferred it stamped on a handkerchief. And near by is the curio store, where you find the same things which are seen everywhere, and where you will doubtless buy a lot of stuff and be sorry for it. But whatever other folly you may be led into, let me implore you to wholly abstain from that deadly concoction, the Mexican tamale. Ugh! I can taste mine now.
A tamale is a curious and dubious combination of chicken hash, meal, olives, red pepper, and I know not what, enclosed in a corn-husk, steamed until furiously hot, and then offered for sale by Mexicans in such a sweet, appealing way that few can resist the novelty. It has a more uncertain pedigree than the sausage, and its effects are serious.
A friend of mine tasted a small portion of one late at night. It was later before she could sleep, and then terrible nightmares intruded upon her slumber. Next morning she looked so ill and enfeebled, so unlike her rosy self, that we begged to know the cause. The tale was thrilling. She thought a civil war had broken out and she could not telegraph to her distant spouse. The agony was intense. She must go to him with her five children, and at once. They climbed mountains, tumbled into ca?ons, were arrested in their progress by cataracts and wild storms, and even the hostile Indian appeared in full war-paint at a point above. This awoke her, only to fall into another horrible situation. An old lover suddenly returned, tried to approach her; she screamed, "I am now a married woman!"--he lifted his revolver, and once again she returned to consciousness and the tamale, and brandy, and Brown's Jamaica ginger. If she had eaten half the tamale the pistol would doubtless have completed its deadly work. A kind old gentleman of our party bought a dozen to treat us all. We were obliged to refuse, and it was amusing to watch him in his endeavor to get rid of them. At last he made several journeys to the car door, throwing out a few each trip in a solemn way. He didn't want to hurt the feelings of the natives by casting them all out at once.
Sweet Water Dam is a triumph of engineering, one of the largest dams in the world, holding six million gallons of water, used for irrigating ranches in Sweet Water Valley; and at La Jolla you will find pretty shells and clamber down to the caves. There the stones are slippery, and an absorbing flirtation should be resisted, as the tide often intrudes most unexpectedly, and in dangerous haste. Besides the caves the attractions are the fishing and the kelp beds. These kelp beds form a submarine garden, and the water is so clear that one can see beautiful plants, fish, etc., at forty or fifty feet below the sea surface--not unlike the famous sea-gardens at Nassau in the Bahamas. There is a good hotel, open the year round.
Lakeside is a quiet inland retreat twenty-two miles from San Diego, where many go for a little excursion and change of air. The Lakeside Hotel has seventy large rooms and complete appointments. The table is supplied with plenty of milk and real cream from their own cows, vegetables and fruit from the neighboring ranches, game in its season, shot on the lake near by, and, in the valleys, meats from homegrown stock. The guests who are not