people here, and some of their buildings are rather fine, but the
gardens and the sky interested me more. A palm is seen here and there
poising its royal crown in the rich light, and the banana, with its
magnificent ribbon leaves, producing a marked tropical effect--not
semi-tropical, as they are so fond of saying here, while speaking of
their fruits. Nothing I have noticed strikes me as semi, save the
brusque little bits of civilization with which the wilderness is
checkered. These are semi-barbarous or less; everything else in the
region has a most exuberant pronounced wholeness. The city held me
but a short time, for the San Gabriel Mountains were in sight,
advertising themselves grandly along the northern sky, and I was eager
to make my way into their midst.

At Pasadena I had the rare good fortune to meet my old friend Doctor
Congar, with whom I had studied chemistry and mathematics fifteen
years ago. He exalted San Gabriel above all other inhabitable
valleys, old and new, on the face of the globe. "I have rambled,"
said he, "ever since we left college, tasting innumerable climates,
and trying the advantages offered by nearly every new State and
Territory. Here I have made my home, and here I shall stay while I
live. The geographical position is exactly right, soil and climate
perfect, and everything that heart can wish comes to our efforts--
flowers, fruits, milk and honey, and plenty of money. And there," he
continued, pointing just beyond his own precious possessions, "is a
block of land that is for sale; buy it and be my neighbor; plant five
acres with orange trees, and by the time your last mountain is climbed
their fruit will be your fortune." He then led my down the valley,
through the few famous old groves in full bearing, and on the estate
of Mr. Wilson showed me a ten-acre grove eighteen years old, the last
year's crop from which was sold for twenty thousand dollars. "There,"