the world! Yet, alas, it has sometimes mingled love's language with sorrow's sad tone; it has sounded the requiem for old and young; while to adorn their brides, the orange has given out its fragrance, and missed not their glory; the crape myrtle has yielded of its whiteness to enshroud the departed, yet comforted not those who were left. Something like this the young girl said to us, in answer to our enthusiastic praises of her home.

"You have a principality here, all to yourselves," we said, "and so secure, it seems as if death could hardly enter."

But though her cheeks blanched with deep feeling as she sadly replied, yet was there something lofty in her expression of faith and trust. Long could we have lingered in this hallowed spot, where the spirit of worship brings all together, and the same form of worship goes on unchanged from generation to generation. The chapel proper has never been changed, but an arbor-like addition to the frontwith a baptismal font, consisting of a large shell, attached to the wall, benches to rest upon, and the sheltering vines overhead-makes an accommodation for the neighboring ranchers, who are far from other places of worship. Proud and grateful are they for the privilege of worshiping under their own vine and fig-tree, a privilege granted by special dispensation of the Pope. It must be the spirit of brotherly love fostered in this place which keeps in perfect unison fathers, mothers, and children, to the number of twenty-five.

On the hillside not far away, the square inclosure of white fence, white slabs, crosses, and monuments, with its tangle of Castilian roses of rosiest dye and sweetest fragrance, marks the homes of the dead; and it is here the grandfather Del Valle rests, in one of those greenroofed haciendas, whose doors do "inward swing," sacredly rests, but his memory lives in the pride and gratitude with which he is remembered by those for whom he planned this beautiful home. The widowed grandmother, now well along in years, with her children and grandchildren occupy this house, all living happily together. The children have their duennas and are educated here, at least during their early years.

As we passed from one point of interest

to another, Miss Del Valle showed, unconsciously, her enjoyment of the simple pleasures of this rural home. She took us out by a small gate, through a thicket of pomegranates and honeysuckle, where we stopped under a huge walnut-tree, under which were two long tables with cleats on the sides. Here they shelled the almonds and prepared them for market. One bench was for the family, the other for the servants; for, as it is a very tedious process, the servants are glad of the help of the family, the younger members of which bargain with them-so much work for watermelons and fruit with which to be regaled. Thus the labor-laden hours roll merrily along, with songs and laughter to oil the wheels of time; and when the almond tables are cleared a splendid banquet is spread in open air, where the great, green-rinded, red-hearted melon reigns

supreme.

From the almond tables we went to a large storeroom, where our guide took down a ponderous bunch of keys, and then showed us through warerooms where were stored long rows of casks of liquors manufactured from their own fruit, each cask bearing the date of its manufacture,-whiskies, brandies, and wine, rare and old. While we were pondering over the extensive business carried on here,for they have their own warerooms and transact their business direct with the railroad companies,-Miss Del Valle asked us slyly if we knew how the juice was pressed from the grapes.

I was familiar with the "wine-tread " of our Spanish neighbors, and promptly answered, "With the feet, I suppose.

"Yes," she replied. "I believe it to be the custom of other wine-makers, also."

Leaving the winerooms, we went to a large storeroom for olives, where the old olive-morteros used in the early days of the ranch are to be seen. She also explained to us their method of preparing almonds and raisins for market. Last of all we went into what she called their "Curiosity Shop." Pile upon pile were stored the bales of wool, both of sheep and Angora goats-the latter a recent addition to the resources of Camulos. There were many curious things here; one of special interest being the old family coach, the first that came into Los Angeles, which

was at that time in the early fifties purely a Spanish town. It came in with all its trappings gay, with place for footman and coachman, and great must have been the commotion it created. In this conveyance Señora Del Valle and her young family journeyed through new roads to the home of Camulos. Caressingly the young girl spoke of it. "Old things," she said, "like old people, should have such good care! "

And we found that the old, in any condition, received from her the homage due to age. A poor old Indian, gray and grizzly, feeble and paralytic, walked slowly along. She told us he was a faithful old servant who had come with them to Camulos; but now he was utterly helpless and taken care of by them.

"Would you speak to him?" she said; "it would please him so much."

So she conveyed to him in Spanish our expressions of sympathy, and our hope that the warm air would do him good. It was such a little thing to do, but how his old face lighted up! As he rested on his cane, he feebly thanked us with his "Multas gracias; multas gracias!" and

saying that he was getting very, very old. As I looked into the gentle old face, I wondered if it were association with these kind-hearted people that had made so great a change from what one naturally expects to see in the face of the warlike Apaches.

Strains from the mandolin and guitarsoft Spanish airs-came to us from the house, and we begged our young lady not to let us detain her longer, for there were visitors within. So, alone, we went through the orchards of deciduous fruits, then into the olive orchard with its billows upon billows of grayish green. And in the light afternoon breeze how the leaves swayed and fluttered! At the edge of this orchard grew an immense old prickly-pear cactus, towering into the trees and spreading over a great space of ground. Beyond was an orchard of deeper green and denser foliage, darker shadows and longer distances. Dark and cool the walnut groves, with a peculiar fragrance of leaf that at midsummer makes you think of early spring. From there we went to the almond orchard, coming back by way of the vineyard, where the grapes-red, white,

and purple glad in the sunshine, told us of the vintage near at hand. Then, along the river's white-pebbled beach, we came again to the southern court, and to the willow and stone where, according to the story, the luckless Margarita washed the altar-cloth. The spring of water bubbling over formed a brook which babbled on its way to the river below.

Going into the orange groves, we traversed the long dark aisles of green flecked with the gold of the oranges, and were feasting our eyes on what we hardly expected to see again. I had seen many of the great model orange groves of Southern California, in bud and bloom and fruitage, and in every aspect, fresh-washed by the rain till every flower was glowing like a star, and steeping the senses in an intoxication of widely diffused fragrance; often I had seen them as planted by the "old-timers," looking now as if in a state of nature; I had visited modern groves laid out with mathematical precision and care, their irrigating lines crossing each other like lines on a checkerboard, each tree occupying its own space and a twin to the other, but never was anything more perfect than this.

As we returned to the house, we came to the long grape arbor, the pride of Ca

mulos. Through its center were long tables, and many a banquet has been spread in this place. Over our heads the green canopy was alive with birds, and Miss Del Valle, who had once more rejoined us, told us that at Camulos no bird was ever killed with the consent of the family. Well could we believe it, for they would flutter down to eat of the seeds thrown to them; and she drew down the long vines to show us, nestling there in leaf and tendril, the dainty humming-bird nests, with their linings of softest down, handling them so tenderly, careful not to touch them lest she should frighten the birds away. Even the shy blue-coated kingfisher forgot to be afraid, and darted past us from his perch in the trees to the pools of water scattered along the river's bed.

We went to the end of the arbor overlooking the Santa Clara River, hemmed in on the south by the richly sculptured San Fernando Mountains and on the north by the foothills of the Sierra de San Rafael. We had a grand veiw of this broad expanse of acres, reaching up from the river to the hilltops with their crown of oaks. Over them came the salt sea-breeze; and had we been energetic enough to traverse its fern-lined cañons and ravines and

climb its bowlders and rugged sides to the top, we would have been rewarded with a glorious view of the sea.

Our train whistled in the distance; through the dusky twilight we took a last view of the home of Ramona. The family had come out in the cool of the evening to escort their visitors to the station. There was the old grandmother, with her lace mantilla over her head, surrounded by the gay young people. The Indian vaqueros were riding wildly about on their little yellow mustangs, with horsehair bridles, saddle-girths, and lariats, driving the cows into the corral to be milked. They were the old-fashioned, long-horned Spanish cattle, black and white. Beyond was the corral of sheep-shearing fame, and still beyond were the brown stalks of the wild

mustard, like miniature trees, shorn now of all their springtime glory of golden bloom and fragrance, through which that tender, good "heart-shepherd," Father Salvierderra, was threading his way when he was startled, as at the uprising of a lark, by Ramona's matin song. It was hard to separate the ideal of the story from the real that we had this day become acquainted with.

As we reached the train, our young donna came to bid us adios in the graceful Spanish fashion, and with a gift of fruit and flowers to take away with us. Sweet as was the burden we bore, sweeter still through life will be the memory of that beautiful home and of a character in real life as lovely as was the imaginary heroine of the famous story of Ramona.

IN MANY guises, various forms, and different garbs, the judgment comes to the sons of men. To one it portends the snuffing of the candle. The spark is extinguished, the fire goes out, and darkness holds sway. To another the veil of mystical questionings forever screens it from faith's clear gaze, and the soul of that one cries out, Into the silent land-ah, who shall lead us thither?"

To the Christian, it comes as a glorious, ever-brightening day, a day without a cloud, a day without an end; for he knows what strong and mighty hand will lead him thither into the silent land. The Buddhist's highest hope is that when he has come again and again to renew earth's struggles, and when sin after sin has been. met and vanquished, it will be his joyful fate to be absorbed into and become a part of the great Buddha himself.

In every Buddhist household an altar is built for each departed friend; and on

what is known as the "Festival of Bon" and called by foreigners the "Festival of Lanterns," it is believed that the spirits of the dead return to earth. Consequently dishes of food are placed before the altars in the homes and around the graves.

Lanterns gleam before every house, and glow with a weird, sepulchral light from every tombstone in the cemetery. The nimble fingers of the artisan have been busy for some time preparing the diminutive wooden sampans (boats), some only three or four inches in length, or weaving tiny boats from rice straw, which on these nights will be freighted with dainty morsels of food, lighted with a dim candle, and sailed out upon the water with a prayer that the " ebbing tide will bear them away on its bosom, o'er the ocean wild and wide."

When the Buddhist has finished one course upon earth and it is said of him, "He is dead," his body is placed in a square fancy-roofed coffin and borne on the shoulders of coolies to its final restingplace. If poverty has been his lot, the funeral ceremonies tell it to the world