We Passed
Through The Mojava (Pronounced Moharvie) Desert, Where The Yucca Palm Is
Plentiful.
A fellow passenger, and old settler, enlivened the time by
some relations of his experiences thus:
He once shot a grizzly bear
which weighed 1,500 lbs. Some are much larger than this. Everything of
weight in America is generally reckoned by pounds, not cwts. or tons. On
another occasion he slew a Californian lion. He had killed a bullock,
and the carcase was hanging in his house at the back, where was an
aperture like a small window without glass, and under this opening
outside stood an empty case. The lion scenting the carcase, and hearing
no sound from within, approached the house, and was endeavouring to
creep through the aperture when, in its efforts to do so, it kicked the
case away, and the poor animal was stuck fast, having its head and
shoulders inside. My fellow traveller, on returning home, was surprised
to find his visitor, and so despatched him with an axe, and has for
years used the skin, which is 9 feet 8 inches long. The temperature was
charming, although in the distance we could see the snow-capped
mountains. We run through the antelope valley, gather some juniper
plant, see a skunk, see natural oil wells at Saugus, pass the head of
the Santa Clara Valley, see the San Fernando mountains, go through the
greatest tunnel in America - the San Fernando tunnel, 6,967 feet long,
go by Burbank, where there is a land boom, and arrive at Los Angeles,
where during the two hours of waiting I have a look at the town and a
pleasant chat with Mr. White Mortimer, the British Consul, whom I called
upon.
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