Old Mexico and her lost provinces; a journey in Mexico, southern California, and Arizona, by way of Cuba . , makes its vivid crimson felt fromthe greensward a long way off. Among the older es-tates this is pointed out as the home of Don Benito,that of Don Tomas, so and so, the family name beingusually American. Audacious in love as in other things,enterprising Americans have married into the Spanishfamilies, both before and since the conquest, and suc-ceeded to their acres. Yery few of Spanish stock stillretain any property of note. If there be or ever existed any real earthly Paradise, Ithink
Old Mexico and her lost provinces; a journey in Mexico, southern California, and Arizona, by way of Cuba . , makes its vivid crimson felt fromthe greensward a long way off. Among the older es-tates this is pointed out as the home of Don Benito,that of Don Tomas, so and so, the family name beingusually American. Audacious in love as in other things,enterprising Americans have married into the Spanishfamilies, both before and since the conquest, and suc-ceeded to their acres. Yery few of Spanish stock stillretain any property of note. If there be or ever existed any real earthly Paradise, Ithink it might bear some such complexion as that of theSierra Madre Yilla, on the first bold rise of the mountainsat San Gabriel. I cannot vouch for it as a hotel, for ho-tel it is, but I vouch for it as a situation. The air was heavy with the fragrance of extensive ave-nues of limes as I came up to it. The orange-trees werepropped up, to prevent their breaking under their weightof fruit. Forty oranges on a single bough! I saw it withmy own eyes. Some of the trees, by the freak of a recent LOS ANGELES. 437. PARADISE. gale, had been denuded of their leaves, which left only theglobes of golden fruit, a lovely decorative effect, on theirbare stems. A view of thirty miles is had across the gar-den-like San Gabriel Yalley, to a strip of bine sea on thehorizon. On the strip of blue sea rests a slight brownspot, the jewel of Santa Catalina Island. Flowering vines clustered along a piazza, part enclosedin glass. In a warm nook a couple reclined in steamer-chairs, one reading aloud a novel in a gentle were a couple of recent date, and as the place for a 438 OLD MEXICO AND HER LOST PROVINCES. honey-moon it was ideal. The orange bears a close resem-blance to the formal tree whicli the medieeval paintersused to represent as the tree of the knowledge of goodand evil of Genesis. It is appropriately placed, there-fore, in our earthly Paradise. Hist! The young woman who had been reading
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectmexicod, bookyear1883
