Page:A La California.djvu/135

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THE STREAMS OF THE COAST RANGE.
107

most extensive and select ever held in Santa Cruz County, and everybody admitted that the undertaker's work could not have been done more taste-fully, nor could the minor details have been carried out in better shape, in San Francisco.

From the summit we look down the northeastern slope of the mountains, upon the wide and beautiful Valley of Santa Clara, and the blue Bay of San Francisco shimmering-in the distance through the light veil of autumnal vapor which hangs over it, and drapes with a robe of royal purple the Valley of Alameda and the mountain heights beyond.

At a roadside inn just below the summit, we find a well-spread table, and dine sumptuously: peaches and cream—not pale-blue milkman's milk, such as we get in town, but real, rich, yellow, old-fashioned cream such as mother's pantry used to furnish us years ago—coming in for the dessert. Another hour's ride, and we are descending the Valley of Los Gatos, whose waters, now no longer the home of the mountain trout, run of the color of "Old London Port at twelve dollars per dozen," the hue being imparted by the redwood sawdust which chokes its course in drifts and bars for miles. There is a curious fact in connection with these Coast Range mountain streams of California. When the long, dry, summer days come on, they fail almost entirely, disappearing in places for miles, then perhaps running fresh and clear, though in small volume, for a short distance over a rocky bed, only to sink from sight again, possibly not to reappear again through all the course of the stream to its outlet in river, sea,