s are drawn there in
the winter principally to escape the inclement climate of the North and
East, and because special efforts have been made for their entertainment
in the winter. We found the atmosphere delightful in the middle of May.
The mean summer heat is 67 deg., and the nights are always cool. The hills
near by may be resorted to with the certainty of finding as decided a
change as one desires in the summer season. I must repeat that the
Southern California summer is not at all understood in the East. The
statement of the general equability of the temperature the year through
must be insisted on. We lunched one day in a typical California house,
in the midst of a garden of fruits, flowers, and tropical shrubs; in a
house that might be described as half roses and half tent, for added to
the wooden structure were rooms of canvas, which are used as sleeping
apartments winter and summer.

This attractive region, so lovely in its cultivation, with so many
charming drives, offering good shooting on the plains and in the hills,
and centrally placed for excursions, is only eight miles from the busy
city of Los Angeles. An excellent point of view of the country is from
the graded hill on which stands the Raymond Hotel, a hill isolated but
easy of access, which is in itself a mountain of bloom, color, and
fragrance. From all the broad verandas and from every window the
prospect is charming, whether the eye rests upon cultivated orchards and
gardens and pretty villas, or upon the purple foot-hills and the snowy
ranges. It enjoys a daily ocean breeze, and the air is always
exhilarating. This noble hill is a study in landscape-gardening. It is a
mass of brilliant color, and the hospitality of the region generally to
foreign growths may be estimated by the trees acclimated on these
slopes. They are the pepper, eucalyptus, pine, cypress, sycamore,
red-wood, olive, date and fan palms, banana, pomegranate, guava,
Japanese persimmon, umbrella, maple, elm, locust, English walnut, birch,
ailantus, poplar, willow, and more ornamental shrubs than one can well
name.

I can indulge in few locality details except those which are
illustrative of the general character of the country. In passing into
Orange County, which was recently set off from Los Angeles, we come into
a region of less "fashion," but one that for many reasons is attractive
to people of moderate means who are content with independent simplicity.
The country about the t