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and the brilliant red flash of the "tutubase," as it flew from tree to tree, like a forked flame, is seen no more. The last of the chiles are harvested, and gradually comes the feeling that everything is ready. Then follows a day or two of sunshine, the last expiring struggle of strength of the dying summer. Then another day of clouds, and at night as we sit gasping for the cool night air, the lightning is seen in the horizon, while the light from countless fire-flies seem but the reflection of the electric flashes.

We think, "To-morrow it will rain," and long for it, for with the rain comes cooler weather and retreshing breezes.

To-morrow comes, and brings more heat and a more intense quiet, and as we greet the passing ranchero he pants "manana-"to-morrow it will rain"-from beneath his wide sombrero, as he calms his highstrung horse.

SO

Life seems suspended now, fierce is the heat, and we live by an effort; a strained, tense feeling of expectancy that is painful in its intensity takes possession of us each night the unspoken question is read in the eyes and answered in one word: "Manana."

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The morning dawns bright and cloudless; the dogs seek the shade, panting with the heat; the fowls lie in the dust under the rose bushes; the fields look dryer and browner than ever; the dust is more stinging and the glare of the sun more blinding even the cactus is wrinkled. and the mesquite leaves are drooping.

After breakfast the clouds begin to gather. As we mount our horses for the daily ride around the ranch we note they are restless and paw,

snort and sniff. Ere another onehalf hour the sky is a mass of purple, black clouds, and the heat seems more intense. As we turn homeward, our ear catches the faint, far-off rumble of sound, which we hope is thunder. Then we see a flash of lightning, then hear the clap of what we know is the sound our hearts long for, the herald of the coming storm-thunder. We lift our sombrero and wipe the trickling perspiration, and feel can it be! No! Yes! A drop of rain upon the cheek! We look to the mountains; they are enveloped in whirling, seething, inky black clouds. The wind comes with a cool, refreshing, puff, followed by a low soughing, and then ere we expect it the sky is cut by a vivid flash of lightning so close that our horses shy-and crash comes the thunder; an instant afterward we are galloping on in a down-pour of rain, a veritable sheet.

Off we gallop, singing, yelling, the horses bounding and prancing, and the dogs barking in unison. Ere we ride three miles, we are splashing through rivulets, and are often fetlock deep in water. Every depression a lake, every rut a rill, and the leaves of the trees are dripping tears of joy, for their thirst is

over.

We feel the grateful, reviving smell the incense of thirsty mother earth offered up in thanks for the rain on nature's altar. As we ride

in through the gates, wet to the skin, the sun sends a broad beam of sunlight through the clouds; the birds are twittering, the fowls are clucking, while in our hearts is felt the indefinable, indescribable thrill of renewed life. The longing is ended, the waiting is done, and we are glad glad for the rains have come.

SAN FRANCISCO, AN

IMPRESSIONIST PICTURE

F

BY CHARLTON LAWRENCE EDHOLM

With Illustrations by the Author

EW cities in the old world or the new impress the traveler at first glance with a vivid, vigorous sky line, or profile, as does San Francisco, seen from the bay. One might paint this profile and entitle it "Portrait of a City," for not only is a recognizable likeness of San Francisco to be had from this point of view, but also a general summing up of its character and history, an essential in all portraits worthy of the name, whether of men or places.

As to character, the happy, careless strength of a young giant, a Siegfried, ignorant of fear, is expressed in the very contour of the city, from the sharply outlined promontory of the Golden Gate on the north, over hills of rock and towers of masonry to the vast blur of smoke on the south that tell of mighty industries. Directly ahead of the ferry in which the traveler from the East makes the last stage of his journey, loom the two most prominent elevations of this sky line which seem to stand as monuments of the old city of St. Francis and the

new.

Standing for the past is the whilom signal station, Telegraph Hill, which, split from summit to base, presents a sheer cliff of seven or eight score feet to the bay. In medieval romances we read of the heroes who shattered mountains with a single stroke of the sword; that may be imagination, but it is truth to say that our lusty young

mountain carver of to-day, not Siegfried or Roland, but San Francisco, has done more than simply slash a mountain in two; one of the halves he has swallowed, and he clamors for the rest, rocks, trees, houses and all. At the base of the hill an embodiment of this swashbuckler stands in view of all men; to commonplace eyes his aspect is that of a rock crusher, just as to the bourgeois Sancho Panza the giants were mere windmills, but I fancy that to the inhabitants of those frail dwellings which tremble on the edge of the cliff directly overhead, the machine must sometimes appear like an ogre with angular frame of iron and massive beams, wide-open jaws and entrails of steel, who uses as his weapon the Thor's hammer of dynamite.

Where stood the hill slope now stand the partisans of our young berserker, warehouses and elevators, mills and foundries, from whose smoke stacks flaunt the red and black banners of industry, today's mightiest captain; like a company of free lances the bristling masts on the water front fly the pennons of every nation, for they are of a contingent of mercenaries gathered from the ends of the earth by that other puissant commander of our age, called Commerce.

Many a pitched battle, both legal and physical, has been fought by the adherents of the old order and the new, for the hill-dwellers defend their homes as best they may

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is at present a slight thing compared to the colossal, unfinished hotel beside and above it which represents the material luxuries demanded by the present generation, why, who can say when the coming wielders of wealth will erect a shrine of art overtopping the Fairmount even as that temple of luxury overtops those temples of trade, the huge office buildings at its base.

Thus do the two hills stand for the yesterday and to-morrow of San Francisco: the monuments of today are found in the hollow, once (in the memory of living men) known by the pastoral, idyllic name

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They grittily hung on.

But if Telegraph Hill is the monument of the frontier town of '49 that is crumbling into the dust of history, Nob Hill stands for the future glory of our city, which no doubt will outshine even its present splendor. The pinnacles of the Art Institute, once a pioneer's mansion, now gallery for the fine arts and school of design in one, point to the progress of our people's longing which will seek satisfaction when the heavy work of city building is done, and if the Hopkins Institute

of Happy Valley, now bearing the brisk title, Market street. Happy Valley-Market street; street; the two names side by side make the appearance of a shepherd boy with goat-skin garment, Pan's pipes, gourd and crook, walking arm in arm with a breezy young stock broker, nattily clad in sack coat, creased trowsers, derby hat of the latest block, and the newest weave and shade of golf shirt below his crisp neckwear. Who would guess that these names aptly characterized

each in its time the very same spot! Happy Valley and Market street; the rustic lad developed into the man of the world.

craft

Yes, it stands for the present; the pastoral vale now resembles a river bed flooded daily with rushing, restless cataract of humanity, or so it appears to the newcomer who takes passage on the cable-towed craft that ply up and down its course, and on either bank of this river loom vast warehouses and the towering money-mills of office buildings where clear-brained men of affairs direct the stream of human energy into turbines that generate the power of the present-money.

But it is not the money-mills and millers that the traveler for pleasure journeys from the eastern edge of the continent to see. Why should he? The rich ye have always with you, there as here, and if they are the only sights worth his while, he must find another guide.

My wanderings would lead him. rather to the out-of-the-way corners of the city, where its unique characteristics are found; to the other end of Kearny street, for instance, just before it climbs Telegraph Hill, where the new, exuberant far West jostles that old, old, still farther West which to the rest of the world is the far East. The latest Parisian gown of the French adventuress is here seen in rivalry with Chinese styles, dating I don't know how many centuries back. In fact, you will have to consult an antiquary who makes the Orient his specialty if you really care to learn whether that arabesque pattern of manyhued silk, which is sewn diagonally across the blouse of yonder Celestial belle, was designed in the period B. C. or A. D. He may be able to tell you the difference in age (within a century or two) between the bound-foot girl's embroidered slipper and the courtesan's French heel; between the smooth, polished coiffure which the ebon

haired maid prefers and the peroxide and pompadour affected by her blondined sister; on the plaza the centuries as well as the races rub shoulders.

After the refined art and tawdry squalor of the Chinese quarter, all steeped in the fascinating, repelling mystery of the Orient, I might show my traveler a panoramic marine view-the Golden Gate, the islands and mountains of the bay, from the top of Russian Hill, for a whiff of salt air would be grateful after the odors underground.

Then after a glance at the artistic, ultra-modern homes and into the hanging gardens of these cliff dwellings, where tropical flowers, date palms and the green plumes of the banana flourish all the winter through, I should lead him down into some of the drowsy, unfrequented streets of the Mexican quarter, where "manana" is the motto that might be inscribed on the doors, as "push" and "pull" are writ large on every entrance to the halls of business and politics in the American section of the town.

The dark shops hereabout, with their display of weird eatables, mostly pepper, quaintly decorated pottery and odd manikins of painted clay (types in miniature of Mexican life, usually pleasing, sometimes shockingly so), would interest my tourist, I am sure; if not, I should drop him at the first car line, for it would be a mere waste of breath to speak to him of the world-commerce and gigantic industries of our city, and then by way of contrast point out the tamale factory with its three. or four listless operatives tying by hand their corn-husk bundles of meal and chicken, while they chat lazily and smoke cigarettes. Or the rope walk in a picturesque back alley where a leathern-faced Mexican and a brown lad are proprietor, artisans and office force together, and a clumsy wooden wheel run by oneboy power the only machinery..

Here are twisted horsehair lariats of remarkable strength, but I don't think the number produced in a year would be too vast for the human mind to comprehend without diagrams.

In the Latin Quarter.

Then if my acquaintance trusted me sufficiently to follow, I should lead him through a tunnel-like passage in a squalid hotel of the Latin quarter, at the end of which he would find a dark court, several feet below street level, and a half dozen swarthy, brigand-looking youths playing a game similar to bowls, with much argument and gesticulation. The sport might not interest him greatly, but the interweaving of light and shadow in the dusky court, the flash of polished spheres, the gleam of white teeth, the glow of scarlet sash among the players; their agile movements contrasting with the silence and impassive mien of the onlookers, who, leaning on the railing, showed as a row of grim silhouettes against the dusty skylight; all these and the groups at the tables beyond, drinking, gaming, discussing the latest affray in their

circle, might please my friend if he had a taste for the romantic.

From this resort, if we escaped alive, our way would naturally lead upward, for we should find ourselves at the foot of Telegraph Hill, not the side overlooking the water, but the slope toward the city that must be climbed laboriously with the help of cleats nailed across the sidewalks, and a frequent flight of stairs, for steep is the ascent as the road to fame. Not far above the base are rambling old tenements that overhang half-lighted ravines. of alleys. These are still further darkened by festoons of gay colored garments hung from eave to eave and window to window across the chasm. Many a freshly-washed undersuit shakes agile legs in a dance in midair. It is called Little Italy, with right. Occasional pots and window boxes contain growing plants, carnations dear to the southern heart; the air is redolent with the fruity smell of crushed grapes, for nearly every other cellar is a wine vault, and through doors ajar one may glimpse the rows of purple casks.

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If my friend, the traveler pleasure, is fortunate enough to strike the right moment, he may chance on such a pleasant incident as befell me the last time I climbed the hill.

A sudden turn brought me into such a narrow, crooked lane, overflowing with laughter and the sparrow-like twittering of young voices. But they were not sparrows in appearance, these brightly-clad children of Little Italy. On the contrary they outshone many a bird-of-paradise in their holiday garments of pink, cherry and vivid green; not over-clean, most of them, for they were scrambling in the middle of the street, under the wheels of the hack that almost filled it, and even under the horse's hoofs, in pursuit of a largess of bon-bons frequently showered from a certain doorway

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