The overland journey was much longer, then than now, but quite as
pleasant. At twenty-two miles an hour the country could be seen and
enjoyed, acquaintance made with the plump little prairie dogs of the
Nebraska plains, and their neighbors the ground owls, which bobbed grave
salutes as the train passed by. Bands of galloping deer, groups of grave
Indian warriors sitting on their ponies watching the train from afar, an
occasional buffalo lumbering along, shaking his shaggy head, were the
things that interested the traveler who took the overland trains in '74
and '75.

At that time between San Francisco and Los Angeles there were two forms
of travel: a hundred miles of railroad, with the rest of the distance by
stage; and the steamship line. Families chose the ship. From San Pedro
to Los Angeles was the only railroad of the southern country. In Los
Angeles the flat-roofed adobe buildings, where people could walk about
on the tops of the houses, were a wonder to the Eastern strangers.
Beautiful homes some of them were, where glimpses could be had of
stately senoras in silks and laces, and beautiful senoritas whose dark
eyes made havoc with the hearts of the colony young men. The young
Californian, who seemed a very part of his fiery steed, was at once the
admiration and envy of the Yankee boy.

Queer sights were to be seen at every turn. Creaking carretas, whose
squeaking wheels announced their coming a block away, filled the
streets, some loaded with grapes, others with rounded shaggy grease-wood
roots or sacks of the red Spanish bean and great branches of flaming red
peppers. The oxen, with yoke on the horns, seemed as if out of some
Bible picture.