San Lorenzo, you may see where men sunk wells and money in the vain search for oil.
From the summit of a low hill above the Valley of the San Lorenzo I looked down for the last time on fair Santa Cruz, embowered in shade-trees, and surrounded with broad grain-fields and quiet farmhouses,—on the wide blue Bay of Monterey, and the Taurus Mountains beyond,—on the Pacific flecked with the white sails of ships,—and, turning my face regretfully homewards, galloped away into the mountains northeastwardly, towards San Jose. The road winds up the mountains gently for some miles, then more abruptly, and we presently find ourselves in the midst of dense redwood and pine forests, and breathing the pure resinous air of the mountain woods, with only the well-graded road, and here and there a rough clearing, to remind us of civilization and our fellow-man. The trees where the lumber-man's axe has not done its infamous work stand thickly as the grain in a field,—almost,—and as tall and straight in proportion. The cedars of Lebanon were beautiful to the eyes of the dwellers in arid Palestine, but they were and are but stunted distorted dwarfs beside the redwoods and pines of California. As we ride on up towards the summit of the Coast Range, we look down from time to time into narrow little valleys cleared and planted with vines and fruit-trees, and see neat little homesteads surrounded with happy and healthy-looking children, and all the evidences of modest prosperity and contentment on the part of the owners. Then we give the road to monster ox-teams, ten, fifteen, even
