eastward, the mingled yellow, red, and white of San Diego's buildings
glistened in the sunlight like a bed of coleus; beyond the city
heaved the rolling plains, rich in their garb of golden brown, from
which rose distant mountains, tier on tier, wearing the purple veil
which Nature here loves oftenest to weave for them; while, in the
foreground, like a jewel in a brilliant setting, stood the Coronado.

[Illustration: THE PACIFIC.]

The fascination of Southern California had at last completely
captured me. Its combination of ocean, desert, and mountain, its
pageantry of color, and its composite life of city, ranch, and beach
had cast over me a magic spell. It was, however, a lonely sea that
spread its net of foam before my feet. During my stay I had not seen
a single steamer on its surface, and only rarely had a few swift
sea-birds, fashioned by man's hand, dotted the azure for a little
with their white wings, ere they dipped below the horizon's rim.
Hence, though the old, exhilarating, briny odor was the same, I felt
that, as an ocean, this was unfamiliar. The Atlantic's waves are
haunted by historic memories, but few reminders of antiquity rise
ghostlike from the dreary waste of the Pacific. Few battles have been
fought, few conquests made upon these shores. On the Atlantic coast
one feels that he is looking off toward civilized and friendly lands,
across a sea which ocean greyhounds have made narrow; but here three
purple islands, floating on the limitless expanse, suggest mysterious
archipelagoes scattered starlike on its area, thousands of miles
away, before a continent is reached; and one vaguely imagines
unknown races, coral reefs, and shores of fronded palms, where
Nature smiles indulgently upon a pagan paradise. Nevertheless its
very mystery and vastness give to the Pacific a peculiar charm, which