XII. White shirt for best, and proud he wore it Sunday with a tie XIII. "Only the brakesman!" and his wage was small. The engineer XIV. Of lanterns coming-and my boy, my poor boy lying there, To tell that it was Joe-a mass all grimed, that doesn't stir- XV. How black with coal-dust you may be, your poor, hard-working hands I and the girls are left behind to stand it and live on XVI. As best we can without him!-What? A wreath? A lady sent Some flowers? Was passing through and heard-felt sorry-well, 'twas meant Kindly, no doubt; but poor Joe'd been the very first to laugh At white flowers round his blackened face.-You'll write his epitaph XVII. What's that? His name and age? Poor boy !-poor Joe !—his name has done Its work in this life; for his age-he was not twenty-one, Well-grown but slender-far too young for such a place, but then He wanted to "help mother," and to be among the men. XVIII. For he was always trying to be old-he carried wood And built the fires for me before he hardly understood What a fire was-my little boy-my darling baby Joe There's something snapped within my breast, I think; it hurts me so, XIX. It must be something broken. What is that? I felt the floor IT SANTA BARBARA. BY ALBERT F. WEBSTER. T is probable that no health-resort in America is | regarded with more interest by the invalid class than Santa Barbara, California. It has acquired, by means of the newspapers and by real-estate agents' pamphlets, a reputation which is likely, from its over-glorious character, to do it harm for a time, and to work incalculable mischief among those travelers who trust without reflection. Much of the fault lies at the door of careless writers, but an equal amount lies at the door of careless readers. It generally becomes very clear, upon speaking with one who professes himself disappointed, that he has only himself to blame; that he had read of the drawbacks, but that he had permitted his own imagination to so over-estimate the value of the charms that the opposite qualities had disappeared from his mind. To take a familiar instance: With the exception of Mr. Murray, no one has received so much blame for over-praising a land as Mr. Nordhoff has. He wrote warmly in praise of most that came under his notice in Santa Barbara, and he wrote with the honesty and vigor of a healthy man, to whom the fogs and winds of the place were anything but annoyances. Yet at the same time he spoke of both of these things. The greater number of his readers, naturally glad to hear a pleasant story, took cognizance of all the rest, and gave these important items no weight at all, for the reason that the writer gave them but little. Mr. Nordhoff did not write from an invalid's standpoint, nor did he profess to do so; and, while it is true that he did not tell all that an invalid could tell, he did not tell what any invalid might not tell; that is, there are as few misstatements and overdrawn pictures in his book as there commonly are in the best of books containing general information. is perhaps three square miles in extent, and over the greater part of this the town is distributed. A few spires and a few towers here and there, a number of square and lofty mercantile buildings, together with a collection of low roofs, fairly dense, and then a very scattered suburb of handsome villas, is the reward for the first glances at the place, and it seems pleasant enough, but nothing more. There is not much of a marine interest at Santa Barbara, and therefore it is commonly little trouble for the steamer to find her way to the wharf and to land her It would be entirely useless, indeed, worse than useless, to attempt to thoroughly describe Santa Barbara in its character as a health-resort in an article of this kind. It is probable that as many invalids become displeased with the place as become charmed with it, and, inasmuch as a thousand-and-passengers. one personal and local considerations enter into every sick man's case, it would be presumption to attempt to show here why or why not any class of people should come to the place or should shun it. It will be quite as satisfactory, and certainly more safe, if the writer simply describes the town and the climate as he found them late in the April of the present year, adding, by way of hints, a few facts derived from a number of well-kept tables. Upon referring to a map of California the reader will see that at Point Conception the coast makes a sudden turn nearly to the eastward, and that it again turns, farther on, to the southward; also that a range or succession of ranges of mountains, gradually gaining in altitude as they recede from the ocean, follows the general line. Between this range, which shuts off the force of the cold northwest | winds which prevail upon the upper part of the California coast, and the sea, there lies that semitropical region that has of late years become noted as a place of refuge from Northern winters. In the midst of that region is Santa Barbara. The approach to it from the north and by sea is very pleasing, and disposes one pleasantly toward the town before it comes into view. The land terminates in abrupt cliffs, from forty to sixty feet high, and at their bases there are long, smooth beaches, gently washed by the sea. From their tops the land recedes in low undulations, rich in pasturage, and the view terminates at the crests of high mountains about twenty miles farther inland. One perceives his approach to a settlement in the gradually - increasing number of houses and farm-lands along the coast. Some of these houses are very fine, having balconies, broad piazzas, large gardens and groves, and the cultivated ground seems particularly rich and productive. Several hours before approaching this spot the traveler feels a very sensible change for the better in the temperature. Before turning Point Conception he shuddered with the cold, but now he is pleasantly warm, and he is tempted even to seek the shady side of the boat. Santa Barbara comes into view like the sudden revelation of a canvas panorama-not a complimentary association that, but one that is nearly inevitable, nevertheless. A sudden break in the coast-line discloses the town lying upon a gently-rising plain facing almost south. It seems to be nearly encircled, first by low foot-hills, and then by lofty mountains in the rear. The plain that is directly in view VOL. I.-4 Your first stroll will be, no doubt, down State Street, a broad thoroughfare, with a road-bed of earth, lined for a mile or so with the principal business places of the town. You discern at once that the evil genius, the real-estate interest, has been at work, for very good and very bad buildings are mingled in the most incongruous fashion, and you can almost see the wrangle of the "up-town and down-town factions" in the spitefully savage distances that intervene between one fine building and another. Stables built of wood, some small and some surprisingly large; mud-walls eight feet high, adobe houses of one story; harness, milliner, and fruit shops, innumerable; bar-rooms, Chinese washhouses, and a few minor lodging and eating rooms, of doubtful cleanliness, fill up the wide gaps that exist between the few large structures that adorn the way. These buildings contain the law and real-estate offices (which pay a rental of one and a half per cent. per month to the builder), and the various halls and public rooms of the town. Up to eleven o'clock on each day this thoroughfare is very cheeringly thronged with lady-shoppers and letter-hunters; and, if one happens upon the spot at a certain moment, he may get a fair and home-like view of one of the two horse-cars that occasionally pass that way. Very neat little turnouts abound. Jaunty phaetons, drawn by small, sleek horses, and driven by ladies in gauntlets large enough for a crusader, dash here and there at the rate of four or five miles an hour, bringing up at all the worsted and strawberry shops that can be found. I do not think that mounted harnesses and footmen have yet made their appearance in the Santa Barbara streets, but the ground seems ripe for them, and next year, perhaps, will see a sudden development of style-or, as it is called here among the mountains, of "dog." Up and down the street there are always, at this hour, great numbers of saddle-horses, either tied at the hitching-posts, or loping furiously between the lines of carriages. Every man, and every other woman, owns or has the use of one of these animals -small Mexican mustangs, sharp, intelligent, willful little beasts, but by no means dangerous. The smallest boys and girls-so small, indeed, that their legs, as preventers of capsizes, are practically worthless-sit perched upon the bare backs of the roughest of these nags, and ride the shortest or longest distances, on the most important or the most inconsequential of missions. If it be necessary to get a quart of goat's-milk ten miles off, or to bring a doctor to set a fractured limb in the next block, the messenger leaps upon his mustang and does his errand at break-neck speed. You are often aroused by a clatter of hoofs that is so fierce and rapid that your blood chills as you run to the window dreading a fearful sight: yet it is nothing but a very calm and a very diminutive youngster who, with his small legs parted over the neck of a gaunt roan, is shooting along like a Kansas tornado-irrespective of time and grace. At this morning hour, too, one is likely to gain a good idea of the native element in the town. The Spanish and Mexican people, the greater part of whom are very poor, come to do their day's marketing, and their dark, deeply-seamed, and heavy faces, backed by masses of jetty hair, meet one at every turn. A few years ago, say six or eight, the old Spanish families of the place-some of whom are yet wealthy-consorted with the American element and were friendly; but latterly they have withdrawn among themselves and their huge families of dependents, and stand aloof. With the fresh influx of new people occasioned by the sudden fame that the region acquired as a health-resort, there sprang up naturally a variety of interests with which the old inhabitants could have no sympathy; and the development of the Protestant religious feeling widened the gulf still further. Therefore, it is only with a special effort that one can gain the friendliness of the old residents; but, this once secured, no hospitality can be more grateful than that which follows. There is a portion of the town that is called the Spanish Quarter. It is a little apart from the main street, to the east. The place consists of several blocks, and it is seemingly dead and useless to the last degree. You pass suddenly from the liveliness and bright coloring of the new part of the town into a dingy locality where the houses are built of drab adobe one story high, and roofed with the ponderous red tiling of fifty or sixty years ago. The streets are illy cared for. There is litter everywhere, and weeds grow as high as one's waist on either side. Here a piazza runs along in front of a large house for fifty feet; here is a wall marked and scored by the idle boys of generations past, or sadly eaten and undermined by the washing of the heavy rains of winter. There is no fresh paint, and all the old is blistered and chipped. Neither is there anything new in the wood-work; the pillars are worm-eaten and ready to fall, and all the old decorations are split and defaced. It is only now and then that a human being shows himself; perhaps a huge green door will yield a few cautious inches, and a dark-eyed girl, hatless and shoeless, will sidle forth, or a cramped and bent old man will be discovered sitting in the corner of a dusty porch meditatively smoking his cigarette. A few voices lift themselves above the half-ruined walls, and occasionally a gay laugh breaks out from behind a heavy wooden grating set in the embrasure of some cobwebbed window. Over the tops of the walls one sees the splendid verdure of a few orange-trees, and the odors of hidden gar| dens fill the air at every step. You are told that these mysterious secret houses contain plenty of amiable and handsome people, some of whom could purchase all the rest of Santa Barbara and slide it forever into the sea; but the stroller does not dream of this, and he fancies that he is walking in a village long since deserted save by a few intruding vagabonds to whom free lodging is something of an object. The town, too, has its Chinese Quarter; a small region where the door-posts are illuminated with red-paper signs covered with black hieroglyphics, and where a few smooth-faced, placid-looking folk, with braided hair, saunter about waiting for chances to do a little washing. It is hard to convince strangers of the inherent wickedness of these people. Even their loungers seem clean, and their industrious ones are very industrious. You meet them everywhere, in the town and out of. it, carrying baskets of clothing or vegetables upon the ends of poles balanced upon their shoulders. Now and then the proprietor of some laundry engages a Melican man to do his carrying for him, and it is not uncommon to see the express-wagons of Wells, Fargo & Co. undergoing the indignity of transporting some Chinaman's weekly wash to and from his customers. The conflict of the races does not run very high hereabout; the Chinaman has qualities which, taken for all in all, make him a fair competitor for the white man taken in the same way. A large ranch-owner, twelve miles out of town, a few days since discharged his white dairyman who was earning twenty-five dollars a week, and engaged a Chinaman to do the same work, for thirty-five a month. He has a Chinaman cook at the same rate at one of his houses, and a Swedish woman cook at another, at twenty-five-and the character of the work they are required to perform is similar; that is, no more skill is necessary in one kitchen than in the other. At the same time the proprietor will take a white man in preference to a Chinaman where heavy work is required, if in matters of temper and sobriety they are the same. The white man is nearly always the better man physically, but at the same time the independence of his manner renders him less reliable than his rival, and he often suffers in consequence. By far the greater of the remaining portion of Santa Barbara has been built within the last six years. Up to that time the town was unknown east of the Rocky Mountains, but since then immigration of people who have become permanent residents has been very large. The population of the place is now between five and six thousand-nearer the former figure, perhaps, than the latter. Should you take a walk in one of the side-streets, especially in the upper part of the town, you will be a little surprised to learn that this pretty cottage with its fragrant acre is the property of a Maine judge, that the next belongs to a Cleveland merchant, the next to a Massachusetts lawyer, and the next to a wealthy widow from Indiana. This is no exaggeration; it is parallel with the truth at least. Most of the cot |