Valley was a paradise lost. For seventy miles contrasts of hot sand
and verdant orchards, arid wastes and smiling valley, followed one
another in quick succession,--and down upon it all frowned the long
wall of the Sierra Madre.

[Illustration: SAN GABRIEL VALLEY.]

[Illustration: GATHERING POPPIES AT THE BASE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.]

It is a wonderful experience to ride for such a distance in a
perfectly level valley, and see an uninterrupted range of mountains,
eight thousand feet in height, rising abruptly from the plain like
the long battle-line of an invading army. What adds to its
impressiveness is the fact that these peaks are, for the entire
country which they dominate, the arbiters of life and death. Beyond
them, on one side, the desert stretches eastward for a thousand
miles; upon the other, toward the ocean, whose moisture they receive
and faithfully distribute, extends this valley of delight. The height
of the huge granite wall is generally uniform, save where, like
towers on the mighty rampart, old San Antonio and the San Bernardino
Brothers lift their hoary heads two miles above the sea,--their
silvery crowns and dazzling features standing out in the crystalline
clearness of the atmosphere as if they had been carved in high
relief.

[Illustration: AN ADOBE HOUSE.]

[Illustration: A PASADENA LEMON TREE.]

We sped along, with feelings alternating between elation and