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Italy is the land of the imagination, but thesensation on first beholding it from thenorthern heights, aside from itsassociations of romance and poetry, canbe repeated in our own land by

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by Charles Dudley Warner

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Title: Our Italy

Author: Charles Dudley Warner

Release Date: April 5, 2009 [EBook #28506] Language: English

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SANTA BARBARA.

OUR ITALY

BY CHARLES

DUDLEY WARNER

Author of Their Pilgrimage, Studies in the South and West, A Little Journey in the World With Many Illustrations

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN

SQUARE

Copyright, 1891, by Harper & Brothers

All rights reserved.

CHAP PAGE

I HOW OUR ITALY IS MADE 1

II OUR CLIMATIC ANDCOMMERCIAL MEDITERRANEAN 10

III EARLY VICISSITUDES.—PRODUCTIONS.—SANITARY

VI IS RESIDENCE HEREAGREEABLE? 65

VII THE WINTER ON THE COAST 72

VIII THE GENERAL OUTLOOK.—LAND AND PRICES 90

IX THE ADVANTAGES OFIRRIGATION 99

X THE CHANCE FOR LABORERSAND SMALL FARMERS 107

XI SOME DETAILS OF THEWONDERFUL DEVELOPMENT 114

XII HOW THE FRUIT PERILS WERE

MET.—FURTHER DETAILS OFLOCALITIES 128

XIII THE ADVANCE OFCULTIVATION SOUTHWARD 140

XIV A LAND OF AGREEABLEHOMES 146

XV SOME WONDERS BY THE WAY

—YOSEMITE.—MARIPOSA TREES.—MONTEREY 148

XVI FASCINATIONS OF THEDESERT.—THE LAGUNA PUEBLO 163

XVII THE HEART OF THE DESERT

177

XVIII ON THE BRINK OF THEGRAND CAÑON.—THE UNIQUEMARVEL OF NATURE 189

APPENDIX 201

INDEX 219

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF RIVERSIDE 7

SCENE IN SAN BERNARDINO 11

SCENES IN MONTECITO AND LOS

ANGELES 13

FAN-PALM, LOS ANGELES 16

YUCCA-PALM, SANTA BARBARA 17

MAGNOLIA AVENUE, RIVERSIDE 21

AVENUE LOS ANGELES 27

IN THE GARDEN AT SANTABARBARA MISSION 31

SCENE AT PASADENA 35

LIVE-OAK NEAR LOS ANGELES 39

MIDWINTER, PASADENA 53

A TYPICAL GARDEN, NEAR SANTAANA 57

OLD ADOBE HOUSE, POMONA 61

FAN-PALM, FERNANDO ST LOSANGELES 63

SCARLET PASSION-VINE 68

ROSE-BUSH, SANTA BARBARA 73

AT AVALON, SANTA CATALINAISLAND 77

HOTEL DEL CORONADO 83

OSTRICH YARD, CORONADO BEACH

86

YUCCA-PALM 92

DATE-PALM 93

RAISIN-CURING 101

IRRIGATION BY ARTESIAN-WELLSYSTEM 104

IRRIGATION BY PIPE SYSTEM 105

GARDEN SCENE, SANTA ANA 110

A GRAPE-VINE, MONTECITOVALLEY, SANTA BARBARA 116

IRRIGATING AN ORCHARD 120

ORANGE CULTURE 121

IN A FIELD OF GOLDEN PUMPKINS

126

PACKING CHERRIES, POMONA 131

OLIVE-TREES SIX YEARS OLD 136

SEXTON NURSERIES, NEAR SANTABARBARA 141

SWEETWATER DAM 144

THE YOSEMITE DOME 151

COAST OF MONTEREY 155

CYPRESS POINT 156

NEAR SEAL ROCK 157

LAGUNA—FROM THE SOUTH-EAST

159

CHURCH AT LAGUNA 164

TERRACED HOUSES, PUEBLO OFLAGUNA 167

GRAND CAÑON ON THE COLORADO

—VIEW FROM POINT SUBLIME 171

INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH ATLAGUNA 174

GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO

—VIEW OPPOSITE POINT SUBLIME

TOURISTS IN THE COLORADOCAÑON 183

GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO

—VIEW FROM THE HANSE TRAIL

191

OUR ITALY.

CHAPTER I.

HOW OUR ITALY IS

MADE.

The traveller who descends into Italy by

an Alpine pass never forgets the surpriseand delight of the transition In an hour he

is whirled down the slopes from theregion of eternal snow to the verdure ofspring or the ripeness of summer.Suddenly—it may be at a turn in the road

—winter is left behind; the plains ofLombardy are in view; the Lake of Como

or Maggiore gleams below; there is a tree;there is an orchard; there is a garden; there

is a villa overrun with vines; the singing

of birds is heard; the air is gracious; theslopes are terraced, and covered withvineyards; great sheets of silver sheen inthe landscape mark the growth of theolive; the dark green orchards of orangesand lemons are starred with gold; the lustyfig, always a temptation as of old, leansinvitingly over the stone wall; everywhereare bloom and color under the blue sky;there are shrines by the way-side, chapels

on the hill; one hears the melodious bells,the call of the vine-dressers, the laughter

of girls

The contrast is as great from the Indians ofthe Mojave Desert, two types of which arehere given, to the vine-dressers of theSanta Ana Valley

Italy is the land of the imagination, but thesensation on first beholding it from thenorthern heights, aside from itsassociations of romance and poetry, can

be repeated in our own land by whoeverwill cross the burning desert of Colorado,

or the savage wastes of the Mojavewilderness of stone and sage-brush, andcome suddenly, as he must come by train,into the bloom of Southern California Let

us study a little the physical conditions.The bay of San Diego is about threehundred miles east of San Francisco Thecoast line runs south-east, but at PointConception it turns sharply east, and thencurves south-easterly about two hundredand fifty miles to the Mexican coastboundary, the extreme south-west limits of

the United States, a few miles below SanDiego This coast, defined by these twolimits, has a southern exposure on thesunniest of oceans Off this coast, south ofPoint Conception, lies a chain of islands,curving in position in conformity with theshore, at a distance of twenty to seventymiles from the main-land These islandsare San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz,Anacapa, Santa Barbara, San Nicolas,Santa Catalina, San Clemente, and LosCoronados, which lie in Mexican waters.Between this chain of islands and themain-land is Santa Barbara Channel,flowing northward The great oceancurrent from the north flows past PointConception like a mill-race, and makes asuction, or a sort of eddy It approachesnearer the coast in Lower California,

where the return current, which is muchwarmer, flows northward and westwardalong the curving shore The SantaBarbara Channel, which may be called anarm of the Pacific, flows by many a boldpoint and lovely bay, like those of SanPedro, Redondo, and Santa Monica; but ithas no secure harbor, except themagnificent and unique bay of San Diego.

MOJAVE DESERT.

The southern and western boundary ofSouthern California is this mild Pacificsea, studded with rocky and picturesqueislands The northern boundary of this

region is ranges of lofty mountains, fromfive thousand to eleven thousand feet inheight, some of them always snow-clad,which run eastward from PointConception nearly to the Colorado Desert.They are parts of the Sierra Nevada range,but they take various names, Santa Ynes,San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and they arespoken of all together as the Sierra Madre.

In the San Gabriel group, "Old Baldy"lifts its snow-peak over nine thousandfeet, while the San Bernardino

"Grayback" rises over eleven thousandfeet above the sea Southward of this,running down into San Diego County, isthe San Jacinto range, also snow-clad; andeastward the land falls rapidly away intothe Salt Desert of the Colorado, in which

is a depression about three hundred feet

below the Pacific.

The Point Arguilles, which is above PointConception, by the aid of the outlyingislands, deflects the cold current from thenorth off the coast of Southern California,and the mountain ranges from PointConception east divide the State ofCalifornia into two climatic regions, thesouthern having more warmth, less rainand fog, milder winds, and less variation

of daily temperature than the climate ofCentral California to the north.[A] Otherstriking climatic conditions are produced

by the daily interaction of the PacificOcean and the Colorado Desert, infinitelydiversified in minor particulars by theexceedingly broken character of the region

—a jumble of bare mountains, fruitfulfoot-hills, and rich valleys It would beonly from a balloon that one could get an

adequate idea of this strange land.

The United States has here, then, a uniquecorner of the earth, without its like in itsown vast territory, and unparalleled, sofar as I know, in the world Shut off fromsympathy with external conditions by thegiant mountain ranges and the desertwastes, it has its own climate unaffected

by cosmic changes Except a tidal wavefrom Japan, nothing would seem to beable to affect or disturb it The whole ofItaly feels more or less the climaticvariations of the rest of Europe All ourAtlantic coast, all our interior basin fromTexas to Manitoba, is in climaticsympathy Here is a region larger thanNew England which manufactures its ownweather and refuses to import any other

With considerable varieties oftemperature according to elevation orprotection from the ocean breeze, itsclimate is nearly, on the whole, asagreeable as that of the Hawaiian Islands,though pitched in a lower key, and withgreater variations between day and night.The key to its peculiarity, aside from itssouthern exposure, is the Colorado Desert.That desert, waterless and treeless, iscool at night and intolerably hot in thedaytime, sending up a vast column of hotair, which cannot escape eastward, forArizona manufactures a like column Itflows high above the mountains westwardtill it strikes the Pacific and parts with itsheat, creating an immense vacuum which

is filled by the air from the coast flowing

up the slope and over the range, and

plunging down 6000 feet into the desert.

"It is easy to understand," says Mr VanDyke, making his observations from thesummit of the Cuyamaca, in San DiegoCounty, 6500 feet above the sea-level,

"how land thus rising a mile or more infifty or sixty miles, rising away from thecoast, and falling off abruptly a mile deepinto the driest and hottest of Americandeserts, could have a great variety ofclimates Only ten miles away on theeast the summers are the hottest, and onlysixty miles on the west the coolest known

in the United States (except on this coast),and between them is every combinationthat mountains and valleys can produce.And it is easy to see whence comes thesea-breeze, the glory of the Californiasummer It is passing us here, a gentle

breeze of six or eight miles an hour It isflowing over this great ridge directly intothe basin of the Colorado Desert, 6000feet deep, where the temperature isprobably 120°, and perhaps higher Formany leagues each side of us this current

is thus flowing at the same speed, and isprobably half a mile or more in depth.About sundown, when the air on the desertcools and descends, the current willchange and come the other way, and floodthese western slopes with an air as pure

as that of the Sahara and nearly as dry

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF RIVERSIDE.

"The air, heated on the western slopes bythe sea, would by rising produceconsiderable suction, which could befilled only from the sea, but that alonewould not make the sea-breeze as dry as it

is The principal suction is caused by therising of heated air from the great desert

On the top of old Grayback (in SanBernardino) one can feel it [this breeze]setting westward, while in the cañons,

6000 feet below, it is blowing eastward All over Southern California theconditions of this breeze are about thesame, the great Mojave Desert and thevalley of the San Joaquin above operating

in the same way, assisted by interiorplains and slopes Hence these deserts,

that at first seem to be a disadvantage tothe land, are the great conditions of itsclimate, and are of far more value than ifthey were like the prairies of Illinois.Fortunately they will remain desertsforever Some parts will in time bereclaimed by the waters of the ColoradoRiver, but wet spots of a few hundredthousand acres would be too trifling toaffect general results, for millions of acres

of burning desert would forever defy allattempts at irrigation or settlement."

This desert-born breeze explains aseeming anomaly in regard to the humidity

of this coast I have noticed on the shore that salt does not become damp onthe table, that the Portuguese fishermen onPoint Loma are drying their fish on the

sea-shore, and that while the hydrometer gives

a humidity as high as seventy-four, andhigher at times, and fog may prevail forthree or four days continuously, the fog israther "dry," and the general impression isthat of a dry instead of the damp andchilling atmosphere such as exists in foggytimes on the Atlantic coast

"From the study of the origin of this breeze

we see," says Mr Van Dyke, "why it isthat a wind coming from the broad Pacificshould be drier than the dry land-breezes

of the Atlantic States, causing no dampwalls, swelling doors, or rusting guns, andeven on the coast drying up, without salt

or soda, meat cut in strips an inch thickand fish much thicker."

At times on the coast the air contains

plenty of moisture, but with the rising ofthis breeze the moisture decreases instead

of increases It should be said also thatthis constantly returning current of air isalways pure, coming in contact nowherewith marshy or malarious influences norany agency injurious to health Itscharacter causes the whole coast fromSanta Barbara to San Diego to be anagreeable place of residence or resortsummer and winter, while its dailyinflowing tempers the heat of the farinland valleys to a delightful atmosphere

in the shade even in midsummer, whilecool nights are everywhere the rule Thegreatest surprise of the traveller is that aregion which is in perpetual bloom andfruitage, where semi-tropical fruits mature

in perfection, and the most delicate

flowers dazzle the eye with color thewinter through, should have on the whole

a low temperature, a climate neverenervating, and one requiring a dress ofwoollen in every month

[A] For these and other observations upon physical and climatic conditions I

am wholly indebted to Dr P C Remondino and Mr T S Van Dyke, of San Diego, both scientific and competent authorities.

nature takes a partial rest, and the leaves

of the deciduous trees are gone But howshall we classify a climate in which thestrawberry (none yet in my experienceequal to the Eastern berry) may be eaten inevery month of the year, and ripe figs may

be picked from July to March? What shall

I say of a frost (an affair of only an hourjust before sunrise) which is hardlyanywhere severe enough to disturb thedelicate heliotrope, and even in thedeepest valleys where it may chill theorange, will respect the bloom of that fruit

on contiguous ground fifty or a hundredfeet higher? We boast about many things inthe United States, about our blizzards andour cyclones, our inundations and ourareas of low pressure, our hottest and ourcoldest places in the world, but what can