mountain meadows run swift brooks, over-peopled with trout, while from
the crags leap full-throated streams, to be half blown away in mist
before they touch the valley floor. Far down the fragrant cañons sing
the green and troubled rivers, twisting their way lower and lower to the
common plains, each larger stream calling to all his brooks to follow
him as down they go headforemost to the sea. Even the hopeless stretches
of alkali and sand, sinks of lost streams, in the southeastern counties,
are redeemed by the delectable mountains that on all sides shut them in.
Everywhere the landscape swims in crystalline ether, while over all
broods the warm California sun. Here, if anywhere, life is worth living,
full and rich and free.

As there is from end to end of California scarcely one commonplace mile,
so from one end of the year to the other there is hardly a tedious day.
Two seasons only has California, but two are enough if each in its way
be perfect. Some have called the climate "monotonous," but so, equally,
is good health. In terms of Eastern, experience, the seasons may be
defined as "late in the spring and early in the fall";

"Half a year of clouds and flowers, half a year of dust and sky,"

according to Bret Harte. But with the dust and sky come the unbroken
succession of days of sunshine, the dry invigorating air, scented by the
resin of the tarweed, and the boundless overflow of vine and orchard.
Each season in its turn brings its fill of satisfaction, and winter or
summer we regret to look forward to change, because we feel never quite
sure that the season which is coming will be half so attractive as the
season which we now enjoy. If one must choose, in all the fragrant
California year the best month is June, for then the air is softest, and
a touch of summer's gold overlies the green of winter. But October, when