which is carried to the very bases of these cliffs. Orchards and
orange groves approach the monsters fearlessly, and shyly drop golden
fruit, or fragrant blossoms at their feet; while lovely homes are
situated where the traveler would expect to find nothing but desolate
crags and savage wildness. The truth is, the inhabitants have come to
trust these mountains, as gentle animals sometimes learn by
experience to approach man fearlessly; and, seeing what the
snow-capped peaks can do for them in tempering the summer heat and
furnishing them water from unfailing reservoirs, men have discerned
behind their stern severity the smile of friendship and benevolence,
and have perceived that these sublime dispensers of the gifts of
Nature are in reality beneficent deities,--their feet upon the land
which they make fertile, their hands uplifted to receive from the
celestial treasure-house the blessings they in turn give freely to
the grateful earth.

[Illustration: LOOKING DOWN ON THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.]

[Illustration: THE ALPINE TAVERN.]

[Illustration: THE GREAT INCLINE.]

To reach their serrated crests the trolley car, already mentioned,
conveys us through a wild gorge known as Rubio Cañon, and leaves us
at the foot of an elevated cable-road to ascend Mount Lowe. Even
those familiar with the Mount Washington and Catskill railways, or
who have ascended in a similar manner to Mürren from the Vale of
Lauterbrunnen, or to the summit of Mount Pilate from Lucerne, look
with some trepidation at this incline, the steepest part of which has
a slope of sixty-two degrees, and, audaciously, stretches into the