y men, and Maid Marian in
yellow-green habit, Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck in green doublets,
yellow facings, bright green felt hats, bows and quivers flower-trimmed,
even the tiny arrows winged with blossoms. Now there are equipages
three deep to survey instead of one, as they pass and repass in
bewildering splendor. And do look! Here come the comicalities! "The Old
Woman who lived in a Shoe"--a big floral slipper, with a dozen children
in pink and gray-green, and the old woman on great poke-bonnet; a
Japanese jinrikisha; an egg of white flowers, and a little boy hid away
so as to peep and put out a downy head as a yellow chicken; a bicycle
brigade; equestriennes; an interesting procession of native
Californians, with the accoutrements of the Castilian, on horseback. One
carriage is banked with marigolds, and the black horses are harnessed in
yellow of the exact shade. It is fitly occupied by black-eyed Spanish
beauties, with raven hair done up high with gold combs, and black lace
costumes with marigolds for trimming, and takes a well-deserved prize.

Roses, roses, roses, roses! How they fly and fall as the fleeting
display is passing! Thirty thousand on one carriage. Roses cover the
street. And yet the gardens don't seem stripped. Where millions are
blooming thousands are not missed. And not roses alone, but every flower
of field and garden and conservatory is honored and displayed. Now the
contestants are driving up to the grand stand to secure silken banners.
Every one looks a little bit weary in procession and audience. Is it
over? I murmur regretfully:

"All that's bright must fade,
The brightest still the fleetest;
All that's sweet was made
But to be lost when sweetest."

Yes, it is over! Waving banners, rainbow colors, showers of blossoms,
rosy faces, mimic battle, fairy scenes, the ideal realized!

This is better than the New Orleans Mardi Gras, so often marred by rain
and mud, with mythological ambiguities that few can understand, and
difficult to interpret in passing tableaux; better than similar display
at Nice and Mentone. _This_ I do call "unique" and the only. Let Santa
Barbara have this yearly festa for her own. She has fairly won the
preeminence.

We at the comparatively frozen and prosaic north can indulge in gay
coaching parades at Franconia, Newport, or Lenox, where costumes of
gorgeous hues assist the natural beauty of the flowers. But it is only a
coaching parade, at the w