I have
experienced great heat in many parts of the world, but Suez, the Red
Sea, the hottest parts of India, are a joke to what I felt there. I
have since heard it has the reputation of being the hottest place on
earth!

Between Yuma and the head of the Gulf of California is about eighty
miles. It would not therefore be difficult to let the water of the
ocean into this dry bed, and make a large sea there, the same as they
propose to do in Northern Africa.

Yuma is on the boundary-line between the States of Arizona and
California, but it is some six hours further west by rail ere you
leave this supposed dry sea bed and begin to ascend. California had
been painted to me in such bright colours, both in England and
America, I could not, when daylight came the following morning, and
there was still nothing but desert, believe we were really there. But
so it was. We ascended for some hours, and the climate bettered as
we did so, until at last we could breathe once more, but the desert
was still there, and it was not till we came near Los Angeles, which
is some 150 miles beyond Yuma, that we began to encounter vegetation.
Los Angeles (the Angels) was so named by the Spaniards who founded
it. It is on the barren Pacific coast alluded to, but the soil is of
desert kind number two, that is, it has vitality in it, and water
makes it fertile. Thus by artificial means (for of rain there is very
little) the environs of the town are highly cultivated. Fruit is the
main product. The grapes are magnificent, so are the peaches, in
appearance at least, but they lack flavour. This defect is common to
that fruit all over California; but I need not enumerate each kind of
fruit grown, all that thrives both in temperate and semi-tropical
regions is found there, and, the peaches excepted, all first rate of
their kinds.

It was here I first appreciated the cheapness of fruit in California.
A big basket of splendid black grapes, which at the cheapest time in
London would cost say eight shillings, I bought there for a few
cents, say sixpence, and all other fruit in proportion.

I did not stay at Los Angeles; I was anxious to see my sons in the
Antelope Valley, and we were now nearing it. I omitted to mention
that while I was at New York, I received a letter from them, in it
they told me that I had been grossly deceived, and that the said
valley was, to repeat their words, "an out-and-out do." That nothing
could be done there, that I should