The unsuspecting traveler who has crossed the Colorado River and
entered Southern California, naturally looks around him for the
orange groves of which he has so often heard, and is astonished not
to find himself surrounded by them; but, gradually, the truth is
forced upon his mind that, in this section of our country, he must
not base his calculations upon eastern distances, or eastern areas.
For, even after he has passed the wilderness of Arizona and the
California frontier, he discovers that the Eldorado of his dreams
lies on the other side of a desert, two hundred miles in breadth,
beyond whose desolate expanse the siren of the Sunset Sea still
beckons him and whispers: "This is the final barrier; cross it, and I
am yours." The transit is not difficult, however, in days like these;
for the whole distance from Chicago to the coast can be accomplished
in seventy-two hours, and where the transcontinental traveler of less
than half a century ago was threatened day and night with attacks
from murderous Apaches, and ran the risk of perishing of thirst in
many a waterless "Valley of Death," the modern tourist sleeps
securely in a Pullman car, is waited on by a colored servant, and
dines in railway restaurants the management of which, both in the
quality and quantity of the food supplied, even in the heart of the
Great American Desert, is justly famous for its excellence.

At San Bernardino, we enter what is called the Garden of Southern
California; but even here it is possible to be disappointed, if we
expect to find the entire country an unbroken paradise of orange
trees and roses. Thousands of oranges and lemons, it is true, suspend
their miniature globes of gold against the sky; but interspersed
between their groves are wastes of sand, reminding us that all the
fertile portion of this region has been as truly wrested from the
wilderness, as Holland from the sea. Accordingly, since San