e hillsides into floral terraces, can never be too
highly praised. Happy is he who visits either Palestine or Southern
California when they are bright with blossoms and redolent of
fragrance. The climax of this renaissance of Nature is, usually,
reached about the middle of April, but in proportion as the rain
comes earlier or later, the season varies slightly. At a time when
many cities of the North and East are held in the tenacious grip of
winter, their gray skies thick with soot, their pavements deep in
slush, and their inhabitants clad in furs, the cities of Southern
California celebrate their floral carnival, which is a time of great
rejoicing, attended with an almost fabulous display of flowers. Los
Angeles, for example, has expended as much as twenty-five thousand
dollars on the details of one such festival. The entire city is then
gay with flags and banners, and in the long procession horses,
carriages, and riders are so profusely decked with flowers, that they
resemble a slowly moving throng of animated bouquets. Ten thousand
choice roses have been at such times fastened to the wheels, body,
pole, and harness of a single equipage. Sometimes the individual
exhibitions in these floral pageants take the form of floats, which
represent all sorts of myths and allegories, portrayed elaborately
by means of statues, as well as living beings, lavishly adorned with
ornamental grasses, and wild and cultivated flowers.

Southern California is not only a locality, it is a type. It cannot
be defined by merely mentioning parallels of latitude. We think of it
and love it as the dreamland of the Spanish Missions, and as a region
rescued from aridity, and made a home for the invalid and the winter
tourist. Los Angeles is really its metropolis, but San Diego,
Pasadena, and Santa Barbara are prosperous and progressive cities
whose population increases only less rapidly than their ambition.

[Illustration: AN ARBOR IN WINTER.]

[Illustration: MAIN STREET, LOS ANGELES.]

One of the first things for an eastern visitor to do, on arriving at
Los Angeles, is to take the soft sound of _g_ out of the city's name,
and to remember that the Spaniards and Mexicans pronounce _e_ like
the English _a_ in fate. This is not absolutely necessary for
entrance into good society, but the pronunciation "Angeelees" is
tabooed. The first Anglo-Saxon to arrive here was brought by the
Mexicans, in 1822, as a prisoner. Soon after, however, Americans
ap