A Truthful Woman in Southern California | Page 7

so famished on
arriving that you will empty every lunch-basket before attending to the
outlook. National City, Sweet Water Dam, Tia Juana (Aunt Jane), La
Jolla--you will hear of all these. I have tried them and will report.
The Kimball brothers, Warren and Frank, who came from New
Hampshire twenty-five years ago and devoted their energies to planting
orchards of oranges, lemons, and olives, have made the desert bloom,
and found the business most profitable. You will like to watch the
processes of pickling olives and pressing out the clear amber oil, which
is now used by consumptives in preference to the cod-liver oil. Many
are rubbed with it daily for increasing flesh. It is delicious for the table,
but the profits are small, as cotton-seed oil is much cheaper. Lemons
pay better than oranges, Mr. Kimball tells me. Mrs. Flora Kimball has
worked side by side with her husband, who is an enthusiast for the
rights of woman. She is progressive, and ready to help in every good
work, with great executive ability and a hearty appreciation of any
good quality in others.
It does not pay to take the trip to Mexico if time is limited, there is so
little of Mexico in it. After leaving the train and getting into an
omnibus, the voluble darkey in charge soon shouts out, "We are now
crossing the line," but as no difference of scene is observed, it is not
deeply impressive. One young fellow got out and jumped back and
forth over the line, so that if asked on his return if he had been to
Mexico he could conscientiously answer, "Oh yes, many times." We
were then taken to the custom-house, where we mailed some hastily
scribbled letters for the sake of using a Mexican stamp,--some preferred
it stamped on a handkerchief. And near by is the curio store, where you
find the same things which are seen everywhere, and where you will
doubtless buy a lot of stuff and be sorry for it. But whatever other folly
you may be led into, let me implore you to wholly abstain from that

deadly concoction, the Mexican tamale. Ugh! I can taste mine now.
A tamale is a curious and dubious combination of chicken hash, meal,
olives, red pepper, and I know not what, enclosed in a corn-husk,
steamed until furiously hot, and then offered for sale by Mexicans in
such a sweet, appealing way that few can resist the novelty. It has a
more uncertain pedigree than the sausage, and its effects are serious.
A friend of mine tasted a small portion of one late at night. It was later
before she could sleep, and then terrible nightmares intruded upon her
slumber. Next morning she looked so ill and enfeebled, so unlike her
rosy self, that we begged to know the cause. The tale was thrilling. She
thought a civil war had broken out and she could not telegraph to her
distant spouse. The agony was intense. She must go to him with her
five children, and at once. They climbed mountains, tumbled into
cañons, were arrested in their progress by cataracts and wild storms,
and even the hostile Indian appeared in full war-paint at a point above.
This awoke her, only to fall into another horrible situation. An old lover
suddenly returned, tried to approach her; she screamed, "I am now a
married woman!"--he lifted his revolver, and once again she returned to
consciousness and the tamale, and brandy, and Brown's Jamaica ginger.
If she had eaten half the tamale the pistol would doubtless have
completed its deadly work. A kind old gentleman of our party bought a
dozen to treat us all. We were obliged to refuse, and it was amusing to
watch him in his endeavor to get rid of them. At last he made several
journeys to the car door, throwing out a few each trip in a solemn way.
He didn't want to hurt the feelings of the natives by casting them all out
at once.
Sweet Water Dam is a triumph of engineering, one of the largest dams
in the world, holding six million gallons of water, used for irrigating
ranches in Sweet Water Valley; and at La Jolla you will find pretty
shells and clamber down to the caves. There the stones are slippery,
and an absorbing flirtation should be resisted, as the tide often intrudes
most unexpectedly, and in dangerous haste. Besides the caves the
attractions are the fishing and the kelp beds. These kelp beds form a
submarine garden, and the water is so clear that one can see beautiful

plants, fish, etc., at forty or fifty feet below the sea surface--not unlike
the famous sea-gardens at Nassau in the Bahamas. There is a good
hotel, open the year round.
Lakeside