Each portion has its own attractions. Orange Grove Avenue, a street over a mile long, is described by its name. Great trees stand in the centre of the street, a fine road on either side, and the homes are embowered in flowers and palms, while hedges are made of the pomegranate, the honeysuckle, and even the heliotrope. Marengo Avenue is lined on either side by splendid specimens of the pepper, the prettiest and most graceful of all trees here. Colorado Street, with its homes and shops and churches, leads out to the foothills and “Altadena,” which is often spoken of as recalling the handsome residences along the Riviera.
The street cars which go from the station toward the mountains bear on each the words, “This Car for the Poppy Fields,” and they are a sight worth seeing. Mrs. Kellog describes this flower more perfectly than any artist could paint it: “Think of finest gold, of clearest lemon, of deepest orange on silkiest texture, just bedewed with a frost-like sheen, a silvery film, and you have a faint impression of what an eschscholtzia is. Multiply this impression by acres of waving color.” And in February this may sometimes be seen. It has been well chosen for the State flower.
If consumptives must go away from the comforts of home, this is a haven of rest for them. In a late Medical Record I see that a physician deprecates the custom of sending hopeless cases to the high altitudes of Colorado, where the poor victim gasps out a few weeks or months of existence. “If such cases as the above must be sent from home, as we sometimes think here, to rid their home physicians of the annoyance of their presence, they should be sent to Florida or Southern California, where at least they may be chloroformed off into eternity by a soothing climate, and not suffer an actual shortening of their days from a climate acting on a radically different principle and entirely unsuited to them.”
This is a bit of the shady side after all the sunlight. It is a place for the invalid to rejoice in, and those in robust health can find enough to do to employ all their energies.
The “Tournament of Roses” last winter was a grand success, praised by all. The “Pageant of Roses” was celebrated here lately, and I cannot give you a better idea of it than by copying the synopsis.
Imagine the opera-house trimmed inside with wreaths and festoons and bouquets of roses—a picture in itself; audience in full evening dress, each lady carrying roses, each man with a rose for a boutonnière.
The dancing in costume was exquisitely graceful, and the evolutions and figures admirably exact—no mistake, nothing amateurish about the whole performance.
PART FIRST.
Los Flores, a garden in the Crown of the Valley. Goddess Flora and her pages asleep. Harlequin, the magic spirit, enters, produces by incantation the rain and summons the maiden Spring, who rouses the Goddess and her pages. The Goddess commands the Harlequin to usher in the Pageant of Roses. Enter the Red or Colonial Roses; march and form for the reception and dance of the Ladies of the Minuet. Retire. Harlequin, at the request of the Goddess, summons the Gold of Ophirs, bearing urn as offering to the Goddess, when is performed the dance of the Orient, including solo. Curtain falls on tableau.
PART SECOND.
Same garden. Goddess on her throne, surrounded by her pages. She summons the Harlequin, who in turn brings the Roses of Castile. They bring offering of flowers to the Goddess, and perform a dance.
Goddess again summons Harlequin, who, by great effort, brings the Roses of the Snow, or the Little Girls from Boston, led by Frost Maiden. They perform a dance and retire. Both Harlequins enter, perform a dance, and command the blooming of the Pink Rose Buds. Pink Rose Buds enter without offering for the Goddess, and prevail upon the Harlequins to help them out of their difficulties. The Harlequins send Poppies for the great La France Rose Buds as an offering, and perform “The Transformation of the Rose.” Rose Buds dance and are joined by the little Roses in the Snow. All dance and retire. Enter White Harlequin, who calls for the White Rose dance by the Greek maidens. They perform ceremonies and deck the altar of their Goddess, dance and retire. Curtain.
PART THIRD.
Grand march. Tableau, with falling Rose petals, in the magic cañon.
And not a word yet of The Raymond, that popular house set upon a hill that commands a view hard to equal. The house is always filled to overflowing, and this year General Wentworth tells me the business has been better than ever. This famous resort is in East Pasadena, and has its own station. It is always closed in April, just at the time when there is the most to see and enjoy, and the flowers are left to bloom unseen.
The other fine hotel here, named for its owner, Colonel Green of “August Flower” fame, is on ground eight feet higher, although by the conformation of the land it does not look so.
Many prefer to be in the town and nearer the mountains, and this house proving insufficient for its patrons, an addition four times the size of the present building is being added in semi-Moorish architecture, at a cost of $300,000.
That item shows what an experienced man of business thinks about the future of Pasadena.
The town is full of pleasant boarding-houses, as Mrs. Dexter’s, Mrs. Bangs’s, and Mrs. Roberts’s, and many enjoy having rooms at one house and taking meals at another. You can spend as much or as little as you choose. At Mrs. Snyder’s I found simple but delicious old-fashioned home-cooking at most reasonable rates.
And still more? Yes, the Public Library must be mentioned, the valuable collections I was permitted to see, the old mission of San Gabriel three miles away, and then I shall give the next chapter to my brother, who spent a week on Mt. Wilson, and came down wonderfully benefited even by that short stay. One invalid he met there had gained four pounds in as many days. His ambition now is to open a law office up among the clouds and transact business by telephone, saying the fact that his clients could not see him would be no disadvantage.
While he is discoursing I will be studying the history of the Indian baskets and report later.
CHAPTER VII.
CAMPING ON MOUNT WILSON.
“On every height there lies repose.”
At Pasadena the mountain wall which guards the California of the South stands very near and looks down with pride upon the blooming garden below. The mountains which belong especially to Pasadena are but three miles away. Their average height exceeds slightly that of the Mt. Washington range in New Hampshire. The Sierra Madre system, of which they form a part, contains some peaks considerably higher.
Farther to the East, “Old Baldy”—Mt. San Antonio—raises its snowy summit to a height just close enough to ten thousand feet to test the veracity of its admirers. It is about ten miles from Pasadena by the eyes, but would be twenty by the feet, if they could walk an air line.
To the south and east of “Old Baldy” is Mt. San Jacinto, 12,000 feet above the Pacific, upon which it looks, in the far distance.
The majestic mountain wall, almost bending over the homes of Pasadena, with their vines and fig trees, their roses and lilies, their orchards of orange and lemon, and the distant snow-clad peaks glittering in the gentle sunshine, combine to form a perfect picture. There are detailed descriptions from the pens of those who feel an unctuous joy in painting the lily, kalsomining the calla, and adding perfumes to the violet, the rose, and the orange.
The “Pasadena Alps” are so smeared with oleaginous gush that I had conceived against them a sort of antipathy, which was not diminished by their barren, treeless appearance.
As Nature reasserted herself, this artificial nausea wore away. I took a drive to Millard’s Cañon, and was surprised at finding a charming wooded road winding up through the cañon along a mountain stream. From the end of the carriage-road we walked half a mile to a picturesque waterfall having a sheer descent of perhaps forty feet.