peared in constantly increasing numbers, and, on August 13, 1846,
Major Fremont raised at Los Angeles the Stars and Stripes, and the
house that he occupied may still be seen. Nevertheless, the
importance of Los Angeles is of recent date. In 1885 it was an adobe
village, dedicated to the Queen of the Angels; to-day, a city of
brick and stone, with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, it calls
itself the Queen of the State. Its streets are broad, many of its
buildings are massive and imposing, and its fine residences
beautiful. It is the capital of Southern California, and the
headquarters of its fruit-culture. The plains and valleys surrounding
it are one mass of vineyards, orange groves and orchards, and, in
1891, the value of oranges alone exported from this city amounted to
one and a quarter millions of dollars. It must be said, however, that
there is less verdure here than in well-cared-for eastern towns of
corresponding size, and that Los Angeles, and even Pasadena,
notwithstanding their many palm trees, have on the whole a bare
appearance, compared with a city like New Haven, with its majestic
elms and robe of vivid green, which even in autumn seems to dream of
summer bloom. Nevertheless, Los Angeles is clean, and poverty and
squalor rarely show themselves; while, in the suburbs of the city,
even the humblest dwellings are frequently surrounded by palm trees,
and made beautiful by flowers.

[Illustration: FREMONT'S HEADQUARTERS.]

[Illustration: PALATIAL RESIDENCES IN LOS ANGELES.]

[Illustration: LOS ANGELES.]

Another charm of Los Angeles is the sudden contrasts it presents.
Thus, a ride of three minutes from his hotel will bring the tourist
to the remains of the humble Mexican village which was the forerunner
of the present city. There he will find the inevitable Plaza with its
little park and fountain, without which no Mexican town is complete.
There, too, is the characteristic adobe church, the quaint interior
of which presents a curious medley of old weather-beaten statues and
modern furniture, and is always pervaded by that smell peculiar to
long-inhabited adobe buildings, and which is called by Steele, in his
charming "Old California Days," the national odor of Mexico.

Los Angeles, also, has its Chinatown, which in its manners and
customs is, fortunately, as distinct from the American portion of the
city as if it were an island in the Pacific; but it gave me an odd
sensation to be able to pass at on