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<p>Make but a world of rest:<br />
Swifter than striking lightning<br />
The Aladdin of the soul builds in the heart<br />
A world of unresting hell...<br />
And, oh ye shunners of war, ye are gruelled in a war <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> of the spirit,</span><br />
In a battle of nerves and blood-vessels and the ghost-<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> haunted brain,</span><br />
And the death of delight...<br />
Hence, whip ye to battle:<br />
Live ye to the uttermost:<br />
Abide the adventure.
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<p>Neither from the woe,<br />
Nor from the war,<br />
Think ye to escape...<br />
It helps nothing that ye shut your eyes, oh, cloistered <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> cowards and gilded idlers!</span><br />
For neither shall cushion nor buffet ease the sharp <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> shock of life,</span><br />
Neither shall delicate music in hushed hotels drown out <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> the roar of the battling streets . . .</span><br />
Neither shall wingéd wheels carry you away to the <br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> place of peace . . .</span><br />
How can ye go from yourselves, deluded ones?
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<p>We browsed about the curio and gift shops of Monterey, and the "Lame Duck's Exchange" of Pacific Grove. We saw Asilomar (Retreat-by-the-Sea), the fine conference grounds of the Young Women's Christian Associations of the Pacific Coast, whose commodious assembly and living halls are the gift of Mrs. Phœbe Hearst. We learned the delicious flavor, on many picnics, of the California ripe olive. One might be dubious about the satisfying quality of Omar Khayam's bottle of wine and loaf of bread "underneath the bough." But with the loaf of bread and plenty of California olives one could be perfectly content. I could have a feast of Lucullus any day in California on abalone soup, with its delicate sea flavor, bread, and olives.
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<p>In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slender iron pillar, with a bell hanging from its down-turned top, like a lily drooping on its stalk. This bell is a northern guide post of the famous El Camino Real, the old highway of the Spanish monks and monasteries on which still stand the ruins of the ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We purpose to drive south the entire length of the six hundred miles of El Camino Real; and then turning northward to cross the mountain backbone of the State of California, and to come up through the vast and fertile stretches of its western valleys, meeting the Lincoln Highway at the town of Stockton.
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<p>October, 1914.
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<p>We visited the San Carlos Mission on the edge of the town. Unlike the deserted little church at Carmel, San Carlos is in excellent repair, perfectly kept and in constant use. There they show you some of the old vestments said to be Father Serra's own. There you may see his silver mass cards, with their Latin inscriptions engraved upon the upright silver plate, reading: "In the beginning was the Word," etc. The same beaten silver water bucket which Father Serra used for holy water is to-day used by the incumbent priest. On the walls are the adoring angels which Father Serra taught the Indians to paint. One of the special treasures of the Mission is Father Serra's beautiful beaten gold chalice, a consecrated vessel touched only by the priests. Back of the church is kept as a precious possession the stump of the old oak tree under which Father Serra celebrated his first mass and took possession of California in the name of Spain. The spot where the oak tree stood, on the highway between Monterey and Pacific Grove, is marked by a modest stone just below Presidio Hill.
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<p>In the middle of the valley is the city of San José, an active, bustling town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to rest and bask in the sunshine.
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<p>When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San José, and commanding from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as San José is called. And there is the interesting trip from San José to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night at the hotel below on the mountain slope.
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<p>It seemed that we would never tear ourselves away from the Monterey Peninsula. We wandered through the beautiful grounds of the Hotel del Monte with their ancient live oaks. We walked and mused along the streets of Monterey, where Robert Louis Stevenson once walked and mused. We rejoiced in the sight of a lovely old Spanish house at the head of Polk Street, carefully kept up by its present owner. We saw the Sherman Rose cottage, the old home of Sherman's Spanish love, and the Sherman-Halleck quarters, and the old Hall of Records. We stopped to gaze at old adobe dwelling houses, some with thick walls roofed with tile around their yards; some with second floor galleries, supported by plain, slender wooden posts, roses clambering over them.
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<p>From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been! As we think back over its miles we recall the noble pines and the towering Sequoias of the high Sierras of California; the flashing water-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, tilled like a garden, watered by the hoarded and guarded streams from the everlasting hills; and the rich valleys of grain, running up to the hillsides and dotted by live oak trees. We recall miles of vineyard under perfect cultivation. We see again the blue of the Pacific and the green of the forest cedars and cypresses. High Lake Tahoe spreads before us, with its southern fringe of emerald meadows and forest pines, and its encircling guardians, lofty and snow-capped. The high, grey-green deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming stretch before us once more, and we can smell the clean, pungent sage brush. We are not lonely, for life is all about us. The California quail and blue-jay, the eagle, the ground squirrel, the gopher, the coyote, the antelope, the rattlesnake, the big ring snake, the wild horse of the plains, the jack rabbit, the meadow lark, the killdeer, the red-winged blackbird, the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the redheaded wood-pecker, the grey dove, all have been our friends and companions as we have gone along. We have seen them in their native plains and forests and from the safe vantage point of the front seat of our motor car.
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<p>We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding among her laden orchards of apples and peaches and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; the yellow roads of Maryland, passing through her fertile fields and winding in and out among the thousand water ways of her coast line, all come before us. These are precious possessions of experience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge to which the motorist alone can attain.
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<p>It is the morning of the 21st of April when we swing around the graceful bell, run along Market Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into Mission Road, and from Mission Road come again into El Camino Real. We first pass through the usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and small groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes a group of the city's cemeteries, "Cypress Grove," "Home of Peace," and others. We have a bumpy road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch of smooth, beautiful cement highway. On through rolling green country we drive, and into the suburb of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose embowered bungalows, and its houses of brown shingle and of stucco. The finer places sit far back from the road in aristocratic privacy, with big, grassy parks shaded by noble trees in front, and with the green foothills as a background.
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<p>Another drive was that across Salinas Valley, through the bright and prosperous town of Salinas, up the steep San Juan grade, where one may eat luncheon on a green slope commanding a lovely view, and down into the little old town of San Juan, where stands the mission of San Juan Baptista, with its long cloisters still intact. Next to the Mission is an open square which is said to have been the scene of bull fights in the old Spanish days.
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<p>The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, the cattleman on his pony, the passing fellow motorist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our way.
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<p>The lofty peaks of the Rockies have towered before us in a long, unbroken chain as we have looked at them from the alfalfa fields of Colorado.
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<p>A day was spent in driving over the Salinas road and the Rancho del Monte road, on through a lovely valley, up over the mountain along a shelf-like road, and down into Carmel Valley; then along another mountain road by a stream, and up again to the lush meadows of a private ranch twelve hundred feet above the sea. We left the car at the foot of the hill and drove in a farm wagon to the ranch house. We visited the vineyard on a sunny slope back of the house, so sheltered that grapes grow by the ton. We climbed into heavy Mexican saddles, ornately stamped, with high pommel and back, and rode astride sturdy horses over steep rounding hills through thick grass to view points where we could look down on Carmel Valley and off to the silvery sea. As we retraced our journey in the afternoon sunlight, a bobcat came out from the forest and trotted calmly ahead of us. A beautiful deer ran along the stream, his ears moving with alarm, his eyes watching us with fear and wonder. A great snake lay curled in the middle of the road and we ran over him before we really saw him. He made a feeble attempt to coil, but the heavy machine finished him. He was only a harmless ring snake, whose good office it is to kill the gophers that destroy the fruit trees, so we were sorry we had ended his useful career. He was the first of many snakes that we killed in California. Sometimes they lay straight across our road; sometimes they were stretched out in the ruts of the road and our wheels went over them before we could possibly see them; sometimes they made frantic efforts, often successful, to escape our machine; we always gave them a fighting chance.
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<p>Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden.
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<p>A memorable excursion was to Point Lobos beyond Carmel village, a rocky promontory running out like a wedge-shaped plateau into the sea. One approaches the sea across exquisite green, turfy spaces, shaded by pine trees, to find the point of the wedge far above the water, cut by rocky and awesome gashes into which the waves run with a long rush and against whose walls they boom continually. The quiet woods of Point Lobos do not prepare one for the magnificence of its outlook and the wonderful sight of its great rocks rising ruggedly and precipitously far above the water. I have seen the entire three hundred miles of the French and Italian Riviera, having motored all along that enchanting coast; and I am free to say that Point Lobos is as fine a bit of scenery as one will find, not only on the Pacific Coast but along the Mediterranean shore.
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<p>The owner has established on a little cove a short distance from his house an abalone canning factory. Here the Japanese and other divers bring their boat loads of this delicious shellfish. Monterey Bay is the home of the abalone and it has been so ruthlessly fished for that new laws have had to be made to protect it. The big, soft creature, as large as a tea plate, fastens itself to rocks and other surfaces, its one shell protecting it from above. The diver slips under it his iron spatula, and by a quick and skillful twist detaches it from its firm anchorage. Abalone soup has a delicate flavor, really superior to clam soup. Both the exterior and the lining of the abalone shell have most exquisite coloring and are capable of a high polish. In the lining of the shell there is often found the beautiful blister or abalone pearl, formed by the same process as the oyster pearl, the animal throwing out a secretion at the point where it is irritated. The result is a blister on the smooth lining of the shell which when cut out and polished shows beautiful coloring, ranging from satiny yellow to changing greens. We spent an hour in wandering about the canning factory, looking over heaps of cast-off shells, admiring their beautiful lining, and choosing some to carry with us across country to a far distant home. That many of the shells had had marketable blisters was shown by little squares cut in the lining.
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<p>From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara Valley. We are too late to see the fruit trees in bloom, a unique sight; but the valley stretches before us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness after the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as carefully pruned and weeded and as orderly in every detail as a garden, are on every side of us. Prune trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are thousands of them, in a most beautiful state of cultivation and fruitfulness. No Easterner who has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the exquisite order and detailed cultivation of the California fruit orchards. We saw miles of such orchards always in the same perfect condition. Not a leaf, not a branch, not a weed is left in these orchards. They are plowed and harrowed, sprayed and pruned, down to the last corner of every orchard, and the last branch of every tree.
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