sland treasure."

This is hardly an exaggeration.

These are a few of the elements which made the city strange and gave
it the glamour of romance which has so strongly attracted such men as
Stevenson, Frank Norris and Kipling. This lay apart from the regular
life of the city, which was distinctive in itself.

The Californian is the second generation of a picked and mixed stock.
The merry, the adventurous, often the desperate, always the brave,
deserted the South and New England in 1849 to rush around the Horn or
to try the perils of the plains. They found there already grown old in
the hands of the Spaniards younger sons of hidalgos and many of them
of the proudest blood of Spain. To a great extent the pioneers
intermarried with Spanish women; in fact, except for a proud little
colony here and there, the old Spanish blood is sunk in that of the
conquering race. Then there was an influx of intellectual French
people, largely overlooked in the histories of the early days; and
this Latin leaven has had its influence.

Brought up in a bountiful country, where no one really has to work
very hard to live, nurtured on adventure, scion of a free and merry
stock, the real, native Californian is a distinctive type; so far from
the Easterner in psychology as the extreme Southerner is from the
Yankee. He is easy going, witty, hospitable, lovable, inclined to be
unmoral rather than immoral in his personal habits, and above all easy
to meet and to know.

Above all there is an art sense all through the populace which sets it
off from any other part of the country. This sense is almost Latin in
its strength, and the Californian owes it to the leaven of Latin
blood. The true Californian lingers in the north; for southern
California has been built up by "lungers" from the East and middle
West and is Eastern in character and feeling.

With such a people life was always gay. If they did not show it on the
streets, as do the people of Paris, it was because the winds made open
cafes disagreeable at all seasons of the year. The gayety went on
indoors or out on the hundreds of estates that fringed the city. It
was noted for its restaurants. Perhaps the very best for people who
care not how they spend their money could not be had there, but for a
dollar, 75 cents, 50 cents, a quarter or even 15 cents the restaurants
afforded the best fare on earth at the price.

If one should tell exactly what could be had at Coppa's for 50 cents
or at