of the last sights I beheld in San Diego was a man chasing his hat.
Nevertheless, acclimated Californians would no more complain of their
daily breeze, however vigorous, than a man would speak disrespectfully
of his mother.

As in most semi-tropical countries, there is a noticeable difference
in temperature between sun and shade. In the sun one feels a genial
glow, or even a decided heat; but let him step into the shade, or
stand on a street-corner waiting for a car, and the cool wind from
the mountains or the ocean will be felt immediately. People
accustomed to these changes pay little heed to them; but to
new-comers the temperature of the shade, and even that of the
interiors of the hotels and houses, appears decidedly cool.

[Illustration: NOT AFRAID OF THE SUN.]

One day, in June, I was invited to dine at a fruit-ranch a few miles
from Pasadena. The heat in the sun was intense, and I noticed that
the mercury indicated ninety-five degrees; but, unlike the atmosphere
of New York in a heated term, the air did not remind me of a Turkish
bath. The heat of Southern California is dry, and it is absolutely
true that the highest temperature of an arid region rarely entails as
much physical discomfort as a temperature fifteen or twenty degrees
lower in the Eastern States, when accompanied by humidity. The
moisture in a torrid atmosphere is what occasions most of the
distress and danger, the best proof of which is the fact that while,
every summer, hundreds of people are prostrated by sunstroke near the
Atlantic coast, such a calamity has never occurred in New Mexico,
Arizona, or California. Moreover, when the mercury in Los Angeles
rises, as it occasionally does, to one hundred degrees, the