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Show 92 BY PATH AND TRAIL. is a town of one broad, straight street, with witewashed houses of stone, one story high, tree- shaded, verandahed and jalousied. The Tropic of Cancer cuts through the San Jose valley to the south. The town and the land around it for many miles are a dream of joy. Here the orange groves stretch away for many miles on every side, bordered with rows of cocoanut palms which re spond to the slightest touch of breeze, and wave their fern- shaped crowns. In the morning, when the sun is rising beyond the giant mountains, the air of the valley is vibrant with the songs of mocking birds and Califor nia magpies of many hued plumage. Here also, in the alluvian depressions, arborescent ferns with wide-spreading leaves, tower forty feet in the midst of tropi cal trees, whose branches are festooned with many va rieties of orchids and flowering parasites of most bril liant hues. The completion of the Panama canal will mean much prosperity to the west coast, for a railroad will then be built from Magdalena Bay to San Diego, Southern Cali fornia, connecting with the Southern Pacific for New Orleans, Chicago and the East. The west coast will then probably become a great health resort, for the climate is unsurpassed and chalybate and thermal springs are everywhere. Some far- seeing Boston capitalists, antici pating a great future for this section of Lower Califor nia, have purchased the Flores estate, 427 miles long by sixteen wide. The purchase includes harbor rights on Magdalena Bay, and is the longest coast line owned by any one man or firm in the world. The population of Lower California is about 25,000, principally Mexicans and half- castes. There . are 600 or 700 foreigners engaged in mining, and some Yaqui and |
