Part 9

The inn was an immense wooden structure, since destroyed by fire. Handsome grounds did much to make up for the rather shabby appearance of the building. The lake was an artificial pond—about the only kind of lake to be found in the vicinity of San Diego. The excellent dinner was the strong point in the Lakeside's favor, and this was doubtless the attraction which brought several cars besides our own, as nearly all left shortly after the meal. We lounged about the grounds for awhile and then followed suit, taking a different road—by the way of El Cajon and La Mesa—an easier though less spectacular route than that by which we came.

This passes Grosmont, a great conical hill some twelve hundred feet high, and a well-engineered roadway leads to the summit. Of course we must make the ascent, though the steep appearance of the grades caused the occupants of the rear seat some uneasiness. The ascent did not prove so difficult as we anticipated at first glance, though the pitch just before one comes to the summit is enough to worry any careful driver a little. The view from the hill is advertised as "the grandest panorama in the world; one that simply beggars description," and "Fighting Bob" Evans is quoted as having said, "Of all the beautiful views in the world, give me Grosmont; nothing that I have ever seen can beat it." It may have been that the bluff admiral climbed Grosmont after an extended voyage at sea and any land was bound to look good to him. Lillian Russell, the actress, is quoted by the guide-book in a similar strain, but while Lillian is an accepted authority on personal pulchritude, I do not know that she can claim the same distinction with reference to scenic beauty. In any event, while the view from Grosmont is truly grand and inspiring, I am very sure that we saw many nobler ones from California mountain peaks. Indeed, we saw one still more glorious the next day—of which more anon. The view, however, is well worth the climb to anyone fond of panoramas and free from nervous qualms on mountain roads.

Of course everyone who comes to San Diego must see the Coronado, whose pointed red towers have become familiar everywhere through extensive advertising and whose claim as the "largest resort hotel in the world" has not been disputed, so far as I know. It is situated on the northern point of the long strip of sand that shuts in the waters of San Diego Bay and which widens to several hundred yards, affording extensive grounds for the hotel as well as sites for numerous private residences and a small village. It may be reached by ferry from the city or one may drive around the bay—a distance of twenty-one miles, and when we undertook it a very rough road for the greater part of the way. The drive is not very interesting; the shore is flat, and there is little opportunity to get a view of the bay. It is the kind of trip that one cares to make but once, and on subsequent visits to Coronado we crossed by the ferry, which carried our car cheaply and satisfactorily.

The "season" having passed, we experienced no difficulty in getting accommodations at the Coronado, not always easy to do "off hand" in the winter months. The rates glibly quoted by the genial clerk jarred us a little but we consoled ourselves with the reflection that we wouldn't pay them for a very lengthy period. That was before the war, however, and in retrospect the figures do not loom so large by any means!

Our rooms were worth the money, however; they were large and airy; the big casement windows opened on one side upon the sunset sweep of the Pacific, and on the other we came into a corridor overlooking the tropic beauty of the great court. The Coronado is on such a vast scale that it takes one some time to get his bearings, and though the hotel can accommodate upwards of a thousand guests at a time, the public rooms and grounds never seem crowded. Its most distinctive interior feature is the great circular ball-room, perhaps two hundred feet in diameter, and covered by an open-beamed pavilion roof. But the interior is of less consequence to the average Eastern guest than the outside surroundings—the climate of eternal unchanging summer, the tropical foliage and flowers, and the never-ending roll of the blue ocean on the long sandy beach. Here is the most equable temperature in the United States, if not in the world, the winter mean being fifty-six degrees and the summer sixty-eight. Frost has never been known on the little peninsula; even the freeze of 1913 did not touch it. It is not strange, then, that it glows with the brilliant color of numberless flower-beds and that almost every variety of these is shown in the collection of many hundreds in the Coronado court. Here, too, is one of those delightful features of Southern California, an open-air aviary, where hundreds of songsters and birds of brilliant plumage are given practical freedom in a great cage. There are several miles of fine driveways about the hotel and village, and one can explore the place in a short time by motor. He will learn a fact that many people do not know—that the hotel is not all of Coronado, by any means. Here is a good-sized village with many handsome residences. There are also several cheaper lodging-houses and one can live as economically as he chooses in the "tent city" during the season.

Coronado would never appeal to such nomads as ourselves as a place to stay for any length of time—even forgetting the "freight," if we were able to be so happily oblivious to a matter of such moment to us. After a saunter about the grounds, indescribably glorious in the tempered sunlight, and a drive about the village, we were ready for the road again. Like nearly every stranger who comes to San Diego, we were hankering for an excursion into Old Mexico—just to be able to declare we had been there—and the short jaunt to Tia Juana served this very useful purpose. The trip was doubly sensational since Tia Juana had recently been the seat of genuine war, and you could see bullet holes in the wretched little hovels. It was even guarded by a "fort," which chanced to be deserted at the time of our incursion. The village lies only two or three miles across the border-line, beyond which the road was simply execrable. It meandered in an aimless fashion across the wide plain and was deep with dust and full of chuck-holes that wrenched the car unmercifully. And after we arrived we found nothing but a scattered hamlet made up of souvenir stores, saloons, and a few poor little cottages. Evidently the place depends for its existence on the troops of tourists from across the border, and Tia Juana—which, being interpreted, means "Aunt Jane"—welcomes them as cordially as her limited means permit.

While the ladies ransacked the counters of the souvenir store for bargains—principally, no doubt, for the satisfaction of carrying a little "contraband" over the border—we endeavored to interview some of the native loafers on the status of the revolution, but got only a "No sabe" for our pains. A few minutes of Tia Juana will generally satisfy the most ardent tourist and we were not long in turning the "Forty" U. S.-ward. The customs official waved us a nonchalant salute—he did not even give us the courtesy of a cursory glance into the car; evidently he knew that one would find nothing in Tia Juana worth smuggling into the country. We bade farewell to the land of the greaser with a feeling of double satisfaction; we had been in Mexico—quite as far as we cared to go under conditions then existing—and we were glad to get off the abominable road.

A vast change has come over the once stupid and harmless Tia Juana since the advent of the prohibition laws. As might be expected, it affords an easily reached and very welcome oasis for bibulously inclined tourists from the United States, hundreds of whom daily cross the border to enjoy their "personal freedom" in the now lively town. Not only does liquor flow freely there, but gambling, race-track betting and other still worse vices flourish unchecked. A vigorous agitation is being made in San Diego—which is used as a rendezvous by a host of undesirable individuals connected with the Tia Juana resorts—to restrict greatly the issuing of passports, without which one can not cross the border. The new Mexican government has also promised to make an effort to suppress the rampant vice in the town, but little in this direction has been accomplished at the present writing.

No one will wish to leave San Diego without a visit to the Old Town, for here is the identical spot where Father Serra first landed and began his work of converting and civilizing the natives. Here was really the first mission, though afterwards it was removed to the site which we had already visited. Here General Fremont hoisted the stars and stripes in 1846—less than a century after Serra's coming. Here is the old church with its mission bells brought from Spain in 1802; the earliest palm trees in the state; the old graveyard, with its pathetic wooden headboards; the first brick house in California (another may also be seen in Monterey); the foundation of the huge Catholic church, projected many years ago but never completed; and the old jail "built by the original California grafter," as the prospectus of the enterprising proprietor of "Ramona's Wedding Place" declares.

The Old Town adjoins the city just where the Los Angeles road leaves the bay for the north. Perhaps this is not strictly correct, for the limits of San Diego extend northward nearly to Del Mar, taking in a vast scope of thinly populated country which no doubt the enthusiastic San Diegans expect to be converted into solid city blocks before long. There are many ancient adobe houses in the Old Town, the most notable of which is the Estudillo Mansion, popularly known as Ramona's Wedding Place. It was doubtless the house that Mrs. Jackson had in mind when she brought her Indian hero and his bride to old San Diego after their flight from Temecula, where they had expected to be married. This is, of course, purely fictional, but the house is an excellent type of the ancient Spanish residence of the better class. It was burned in 1872, but the solid adobe walls still stood and a few years ago the house was restored. It is now a museum and curio store, and the proprietor is an enthusiastic antiquarian and an authority on mission history. The house covers nearly a city block; it is built in the shape of a hollow square, open on one side, and around the interior runs a wide veranda surrounding a court. This is beautiful with flowers and shrubbery and to one side is a cactus garden containing nearly every known species of this strange plant. The collection of paintings, antique furniture, and other relics relating to early days in California is worth seeing and one can learn something of the history and romance of the missions from the hourly lecture delivered by the proprietor. He will also take pleasure in telling you about the Old Town and his experience with the Indians, from whom he purchases a large part of his baskets, silver trinkets, and other articles in his shop. One can easily put in an hour here, and if time does not press, the garden is a pleasant lounging-place for a longer period.

A motor tour of San Diego must surely include the drive over the splendid new boulevard that follows the sinuous length of Point Loma to the old lighthouse standing on the bold headland which rises at the northern entrance of the harbor. It is a dilapidated stone structure, only twenty or thirty feet high, but from the little tower we saw one of the most glorious views of all those we witnessed during our thirty thousand miles of motoring in California. The scene from Grosmont is a magnificent one, but it lacks the variety and color of the Point Loma panorama. Here ocean, bay, green hills with lemon and olive groves, and distant snow-clad mountains combine to form a scene of beauty and grandeur that it is not easy to match elsewhere. Almost at our feet swell the inrolling waves of the violet-blue Pacific, which stretches away like a symbol of infinity to the pale sapphire sky that meets it to-day with a sharply defined line. The harbor is a strange patchwork of color; gleaming blues—from sapphire to indigo—and emerald-greens nearer the shores, flecked here and there with spots of purple, and the whole diversified with craft of every description. Across the strait is a wide, barren sand flat and a little farther the red towers of Coronado in its groves of palm trees. Beyond the harbor the city spreads out, wonderfully distinct in the clear sunlight that pours down upon it. Still farther lie the green hills and beyond these the mountains, growing dimmer and dimmer with each successive range. Here and there in the distance, perhaps a hundred miles away, a white peak gleams through the soft blue haze. Nearer at hand you see the rugged contour of Point Loma itself; the tall slender shaft that marks the graves of the victims of the explosion on the Cruiser Bennington a few years ago; the oriental towers of the Theosophical Institute, and down along the water line the guns and defenses of Fort Rosecrans. It is a scene that we contemplate long and rapturously and which on a later trip to San Diego we go to view again.

As we returned to the city some evil genius directed our attention to a sign-board pointing to a little byroad down the cliff but a short distance from the lighthouse and bearing the legend, "To Fort Rosecrans." We wished to see Fort Rosecrans and decided to avail ourselves of the handy short cut so opportunely discovered, and soon found ourselves descending the roughest, steepest grade we found in California. A mere shelf scarce six inches wider than our car ran along the edge of the cliff, which seemingly dropped sheer to the ocean far beneath. The grade must have been at least twenty-five per cent and the road zigzagged downward around the corners that brought our front wheels to the verge of the precipice at the turns. Both brakes and the engine were brought into service and as a matter of precaution the ladies dismounted from the car. We should have been only too glad to retreat, but could do nothing but keep on, creeping downward, hoping fervently that we might not meet a vehicle on the way. At last the road came out on the beach and we drove into the main street of the village near the fort, where people stared at us in a fashion indicating that few automobiles came by the route we had followed.

There was little to see at Fort Rosecrans and our nerves were too badly shaken to leave room for curiosity, anyway. We went on into the main highway, resolving to be more cautious about short cuts in the future. When we came again to Point Loma some months later, the sign that led us down the cliff had been replaced with a mandate of "Closed to autos," and we wondered if we were responsible for the change!

On this latter trip we paused before the Roman gateway of the Theosophical Institute and asked permission to enter, which was readily given for a small consideration. Autos are not admitted to the grounds and we left our car by the roadside, making the ascent on foot. As we came near the mysterious, glass-domed building, we met a studious young man in a light tan uniform and broad-brimmed felt hat, apparently deeply absorbed in a book as he paced to and fro. To our inquiries for a guide he responded courteously, "I will serve you with pleasure myself," and conducted us about the magnificent grounds. In the meanwhile he took occasion to enlighten us on the aims and tenets of his cult.

"Many people," he said, "think that there is something occult or mysterious about the Institute, but the fact is that it is a school open to everyone under twenty-one who will comply with our regulations. We prefer to take young children and train them from the very beginning, which our experienced teachers and nurses can do better than their mothers," but noticing the looks of indignant protest which came to the faces of the ladies of our party, he quickly qualified his statement with—"perhaps."

"The tuition," he went on, "is a thousand dollars per year, which includes everything—and the pupils never leave these grounds until they have completed our course. Thorough education is our first object; doctrine is secondary—we do not even ask them to accept our tenets unless they wish to do so. There is nothing secret or occult about our institution; we do not keep the public from our buildings because of anything mysterious there, but because sightseers would interfere with the work. We have more than three hundred children in the schools at present and in some cases their parents live in the houses on our grounds. No, it is not a 'community' in any sense of the word, and the statement often made that people who join with us must give us their property and surrender themselves to our control, is absolutely false. There is no time to tell you of our peculiar teachings, but you will receive booklets at the gate-house that will enlighten you on them. Reincarnation, as you would style it, is one of our fundamentals and Katherine Tingley, who founded the Institute, is from our point of view the spiritual successor of the famous Russian teacher, Madame Blavatsky." I was surprised to learn later that the foundress of the cult, despite her obviously Russian name, was an English woman by birth. She was a famous world traveler and on one of her journeys married a Russian nobleman. One must admit, I am bound to say, that her published works show an astounding amount of research and curious knowledge, whatever we may think of her doctrines.

Regardless of our attitude on Mrs. Tingley's teachings and beliefs, one can not question her soundness and success in a business and aesthetic way. Everything about the establishment speaks of prosperity and it would be hard to imagine more beautiful and pleasing surroundings. The buildings are mainly of oriental design, solidly built and fitting well into the general plan of the grounds. Among them is a beautiful Greek theatre where plays open to the public are sometimes given. The grounds evince the skill of the landscape-gardener and scrupulous care on part of those who have them in charge. Flowers bloom in profusion and a double row of palms runs along the seaward edge of the hill. Through these gleams the calm deep blue of the ocean, which seldom changes, for there are but few stormy or gloomy days on Point Loma. The outlook to the landward is much the same as we beheld from the old lighthouse—a panorama of green hills and mountain ranges, stretching away to the snow-capped peaks of San Bernardino, nearly one hundred and fifty miles distant. It is a glorious spot, well calculated to lend glamour to the—to our notion—fantastical doctrines of the cult which makes its headquarters here. Indeed, my friend—whose religious ideas are in a somewhat fluid state—was deeply impressed and after reading the pamphlets which we received on leaving, intimated that the doctrines of Theosophy looked mighty good to him—though I believe this is as far as he ever got in the faith.

VII

THE IMPERIAL VALLEY AND THE SAN DIEGO BACK COUNTRY

The infinite variety of California will be more and more impressed upon the tourist as his travels take him farther from the beaten track. It is, truly, a land of contrasts; and only one who goes from the green valley of the Sacramento to the arid sands of the Imperial Desert will know how sharply marked the contrasts may be. The former will remind him not a little of the green and prosperous farm lands of the Middle West and the agricultural methods pursued are not widely dissimilar, but where else in the world can a parallel be found for the strange valley that lies beyond the rugged mountain ranges eastward from San Diego?

Twenty-five years ago this weird, sun-blistered desert seemed the most unlikely spot on earth to become a place of incredibly productive farms and thriving towns. The arid bed of a long-vanished inland sea, lying from a few inches to three hundred feet below sea level, with a temperature varying up to one hundred and thirty degrees in summer and less than an inch of annual rainfall, surely gave little promise of ever becoming an agricultural bonanza. It was even more typically a desert, says one authority, than any part of the Sahara of which we have record. To the ordinary layman passing through on the Southern Pacific, nothing would have seemed farther from the range of possibility than that this counterpart of Death Valley should ever become a green and fertile land.

There were, however, a few thoughtful pioneers who knew of the possibilities of the desert when water could be brought to it and who were aware that within a comparatively short distance the great Colorado River coursed through its channel at an altitude higher than the floor of the Valley. Here was water, practically unlimited, which needed only direction into an irrigating system to change the desert's sandy wastes into fertile fields. Dr. Wozencroft of San Bernardino was the first to take practical steps towards this great work, about fifty years ago. He endeavored to obtain from Congress a grant of land upon which he might carry out his project, but the idea was not taken seriously by the lawmakers, who dismissed it with a few jocular flings at the promoter's expense. The experts declared the plan not impractical, but the politicians could not be induced to take favorable action upon it. The immediate outcome was that the enthusiastic promoter lost his fortune in his fruitless efforts and died a disappointed man, but he had directed public attention to the possibility of reclaiming the Valley and various attempts were made by others to carry out his plans.

No considerable headway was made until the organization of the California Development Company in 1896 for the purpose of reclaiming what was then first styled the Imperial Valley. This was a water corporation whose purpose was to construct an irrigating system to serve some five hundred thousand acres of desert land then open to occupation by settlers under the national homestead acts. The profits of the company were to come from the sale of water service, since it did not own or control the land. The contour of the country made it necessary to bring the main supply canal through Mexican territory for a distance of forty or fifty miles, and the canal now serves some two hundred thousand acres in Mexico. An old river bed which resulted from an overflow many years ago carried the water a considerable part of the distance and greatly minimized the labor necessary to complete the canal. Still, it was a stupendous task, requiring several years' time and a large expenditure of money. The seepage and overflow from the irrigating system was to be conveyed to the lowest part of the Valley, the Salton Basin, now occupied by the Salton Sea, a shallow lake two or three hundred square miles in extent.

This lake originated in a sensational manner, which engaged the attention of the country for many months. During the summer of 1904 the development company undertook to increase the supply of water from the Colorado by cutting a new outlet which was to be controlled by flood gates. Before the work was completed an unprecedented rise washed away the controlling works and threatened to turn the whole volume of the river into the Valley. A tremendous channel was soon torn in the sands by the raging flood—which was known as New River—and the waters coursed through the Valley to Salton Basin, which filled rapidly. Efforts made by the company to check the torrent were without avail; its means and facilities were too limited to cope with the serious situation.