THE OVERLAND MONTHLY. VOL. XIV. (SECOND SERIES.)-DECEMBER, 1889.-No. 84. AUTUMN DAYS IN VENTURA. I. THERE was no station where we alighted from the train, which shrieked us a farewell as it sped down the tawny slope of the Santa Clara. The fervency of the morning sun hastened our steps toward the white buildings of the Camulos, staring resistlessly through a profusion of glossy green, dashed here and there with brilliant blots of color. Under foot the dust was broken by innumerable roseate petals the wind had tossed over the adobe walls, on whose broad top several pomegranate trees rested their crimson-streaked burdens of fruit. The air was sweet with blooms of lemon, and oleander, and sunsteeped heliotrope, banked high against the jutting buttresses of the low, flatroofed casa within the garden inclosure. On a wide veranda a beautiful girl was swinging in a hammock, the gauzelike folds of her summery gown sweeping the floor. VOL. XIV. 36. (Copyright, 1889, by OVERLAND MONTHLY PUBLISHING Co.) All rights reserved. Bacon & Company, Printers. Above her head ripe clusters of Mission in California. Here are the great grapes hung pendent in their grayish stone jars of which she writes, which green leaves, out of which a ruddy- were made generations ago by the breasted linnet chirruped to us invit- patient hands of the San Luis Obisingly. po Indians; and here the fountain "A veritable Ramona!" Margaret ex- yet drips murmuringly into the deep claimed under her breath. Our shadows fell across the fierce patch of light on the sun-baked earth directly before the porch, and the young lady dropped her book with a gesture of impatience as she turned toward us haughtily, the rich color deepening in her eyes and cheeks. The Judge hurried forward with outstretched hand: "We are bona fide visitors, Miss Belle, and have no intention of invading the premises without permission." The Señorita was on her feet in an instant, laughing infectiously while she greeted us with the incomparable grace and warmth of a true Castellano. "You must forgive me for mistaking you for more of those dreaded tourists, who insist upon seeing everything from the bed rooms to the sheep corral," she said apologetically; then went on to explain in her perfect English how much they had been annoyed by people coming at all times and hours to visit the home of the far-famed Ramona. "Nothing will convince them that our mother is not that atrocious Señora Moreno, or that Ramona is not to be found in either my sister or myself. The fact is, we were all in Los Angeles when Mrs. Jackson called, and consequently have never met the lady." Certainly the author of "Ramona" has given her readers an accurate description of this best preserved of all the old Mexican homes pool of its basin, the orange groves hold out their waxy blossoms and yellowing balls, the grape vines on the long arbor drop through the lattice their heavy bunches purpling with wine, while the honeysuckles still twist themselves around the pillars and eves of the casa, and fling their flowering mantles over the cracking wall of the garden. The present Señora is also a devout churchwoman. The little white chapel among her orange trees is her sacred resort, and no calls of business or pleasure ever interfere with the daily service the Señora reads to her household assembled there before the altar. On its spotless linen cover are placed certain valuable relics of the family. Pictures of saints and martys hang on the walls, and freshly cut flowers stand on brackets before the images of Christ and the Virgin. Not infrequently a traveling padre visits the Camulos and says mass in the chapel, he being first arrayed in costly vestments kept always in a chest of drawers near the altar. Outside, the walls and pointed roof of the chapel are dressed with foliage as for a perpetual festival. Just to the right of this little edifice is a framework of heavy beams on which swings a trio of ancient bells above GRAPE ARBOR AT CAMULOS. a tangle of vines. The largest is more than a century old, and once belonged to the Mission of San Fernando. Beyond the bells, the orchards crowd down to the very bed of the river. The apri SENORITA BELLE. 'sponded brightly. "However, we Spaniards regard Mrs. Jackson's delineation of our characteristics and customs, we vehemently disclaim any knowledge of such Indians as she depicts in 'Ramona.' Our men are fair samples of their class, and you can see at a glance what they are." Here our fair critic. pointed out the primi tive mill which crushes the olives for oil, and the still where their grape brandy is manufactured. Afterwards we were given a peep into the long wine 'cellars, whose immense oaken casks were ripening their fragrant contents in the dimly lighted, cobwebby solitude. The dinner bell interrupted our further explorations. Señorita Belle led us back to the house, and into a long, cool room where a table was set for fifteenall members of the Del Valle family. The widowed Señora, still handsome and youthful looking, presided at the meal, addressing us in the softest of Spanish, and observing a dignified composure in Passing on to the far-reaching vine- perfect keeping with her age and posiyards, we watched with interest a group tion. Her late husband, Ygnacio Del of Indians picking the lustrous clus- Valle, was once an officer in the Mexiters of grapes and heaping them into cot, almond, and walnut trees were brightening with Autumn's red and gold, while the gray stretch of olives was abruptly lost in the vivid emerald of the orange and lemon groves. huge baskets, to be afterwards thrown. into the great crushing vats, which hold a thousand gallons each. "I see no Alessandro among your Indians," Margaret remarked, with a significant nod toward the coarse-visaged workmen toiling and sweating under the vertical rays of the sun. "They only exist in the novelist's brain, I assure you," the Señorita re can army. Since he obtained his discharge from that service in 1844, he has held various honorable positions, both in the municipal and state affairs of California. In 1861 he retired to this beautiful spot at the confluence of the Piru and Santa Clara rivers. Here he devoted his time to the rearing and educating of his children, and the improvement of his fruitful acres. How well he accomplished these ends, the culture and grace of his sons and daughters, and the rich luxuriance of his estate, bear eloquent witness. After a dessert of Mission grapes, pomegranates, light wine, and curiouslyseeded prickly pears from a species of Castilian cactus, we went for a drive to the celebrated rancho of David C. Cook, the Chicago publisher of Sunday School literature. This place is a part of the old Temescal Rancho, and consists of nearly 14,000 acres of land, located along the Piru River, a boiling flood in the rainy season, but shallow and full of languorous curves and pauses in the sum mer months. The railroad traverses the lower end of the Rancho, crossing the Piru on a Howe Truss bridge of two spans, each one hundred and seventy feet in length. Mr. Cook's large cottage, with six or eight smaller ones, occupies a commanding site on a bench overlooking a grand sweep of country. These homes are frowned over by gigantic peaks rising precipitously at the back. Such stupendous barrenness as these mountains discover! Cloud-raking summits disemboweled, rent, and torn by inconceivable torrents! Vast chalky slides and sheer declivities of bleaching cliffs that glaze the eye and chill the blood to look upon. So all-pervading is the evidence of disintegrating and centrifugal forces at work for ages in these tremendous upheavals, that one vaguely wonders how the wild oats and bunchgrass have been undisturbed a sufficient length of time to root, flower, and seed on many of the highest points and slopes. Mrs. Cook welcomed us warmly, and telephoned our arrival to her husband, who was at the tool-house some distance up the cañon. When I asked this pretty, refined lady how she liked living at Piru, she answered frankly: "O, at first I thought I should die or lose my mind, but now I like it very much, as our health is so much better here. Besides, I am growing to feel more at home with the mountains. I remember that first summer how those nearest cliffs glared and whitened in the sun, and sent down rivulets of loosened earth as a hint, I thought, of more to follow. And in the moonlight they were even more terrible in their awful nearness and omnipresence. I often wonder what some of my Eastern friends would think of that magnificent mountain view on the south! Can you imagine that just to the right of that topmost point there are people living! Well, there is a rounded hollow that you cannot see, and their home is in it, beside a beautiful lake, circled by troops of giant sycamores and oaks. It is just as though some mighty hand had cleft the mountain in twain, sliding the loosened half down the gorge, and leaving revealed this core of living water. The lake is fed by unseen springs, and drained by underground channels. It abounds in fish, and is the favorite rendezvous of countless wild geese and ducks. It is an enchanting spot, and well worth all the danger of climbing to it." Our hostess showed us around the garden, which includes ten acres set to all manner of tropical plants. Some rods back of the house is the site of the fine mansion they will build the coming summer. The occupants of the neighboring cottages are friends of theirs from Chicago, among whom is a minister who conducts regular services in the small church near the mouth of the cañon. Most of his congregation are the men employed on the rancho, who sometimes number as high as one hundred. A half hour later we were joined by fig trees in the nursery, which will be transplanted this fall. These orchards are irrigated from a flume more than four miles in length, which taps the river at the upper end of the cañon. To our left, going up the stream, entire mountains are set out to eucalyptus forests, and still another rounded hill is grown to olives, which its owner in all reverence has named "Olivet." Mr. Cook, a slight, nervous looking man, with smooth-shaven, hollow cheeks, animated eyes, and the whitest teeth I ever saw. He proved himself an agreeable host, notwithstanding his possession of a full share of the eccentricities usually ascribed to genius. His almost superhuman energy combined with rare executive ability, and an extraordinary insight into the broadest and subtlest mechanics, renders him able to bring to a suc- All this section of California is peculcessful issue undertakings that would iarly adapted to olive culture. They paralyze the forces of an ordinary individual. One views with wonder the man who has accomplished so much in two years' time, even with the assistance of well nigh limitless capital. The cañon of the Piru broadens here and there into valleys and plateaus that Mr. Cook has planted to orchards and vineyards. Here are four hundred acres of young oranges, three hundred of apricots, one hundred and eighty of figs, two hundred of English walnuts, one hundred and thirty of olives, eighty of grapes, thirty of chestnuts, twenty of almonds, and ten acres each of pomegranates and Japanese persimmons, all growing finely. There are also 150,000 citrus and 35,000 grow from cuttings, and bear a limited crop the fourth year. At ten years they are said to be in full fruition, and their endurance is estimated at an extravagant figure. Those planted by the Franciscan fathers over a hundred years ago are yet bearing, while there are records of trees in Italy that have borne for upwards of several centuries. The raising of olives promises to be one of the most profitable industries in this State. Large tracts of land unfit for the culture of the more exacting fruits, will afford ample sustenance to the thrifty olive. A single acre of olives in full bearing has been known to clear from $1,200 to $1,500 a year, if made into pickles, and $2,000 if |