Abroad and at Home; Practical Hints for Tourists

A CUBAN CITY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Key West is the ninth port of entry in the United States, collecting more import duty than all the other ports in the States of Florida and Georgia and one-half of Alabama combined.

In 1860 the population was about two thousand, one-quarter of whom were colored; but in 1869, after the rebellion in Cuba, the population of the island began to increase and now it numbers twenty-two thousand, and they claim that it is the largest city in Florida.

The inhabitants are mixed, very much mixed—Cubans, negroes, Americans, Chinese, etc. The negroes come from Nassau, Cuba and other places.

Key West was bought of Spain, as before remarked; the island is nearer Cuba than any other land, it is not in any sense American except that it flies the American flag, and it seems to be now, to all intents and purposes, a foreign place—a Spanish colony, as it once was. Spanish is the prevailing language, and Cubans predominate. All the public notices and handbills are printed in two languages, several newspapers are printed in Spanish, and only one, the Equator-Democrat, in English. It is difficult to make a purchase or to transact any business unless you speak Spanish, and there are few drivers or conductors of street cars who can understand you if addressed in English. The car drivers swear at their patient, sadly abused mules in hard Spanish. All the American residents and business men speak the prevailing tongue, or are learning it as fast as they can, for without it they cannot so readily conduct business.

Speaking of the street cars, they are all open, of course, winter and summer. In fact, there is never anything resembling northern winter weather in Key West; light summer clothes and Panama hats are worn the year round.

But you are not obliged to patronize street cars. Riding in private conveyances is at a cheaper rate of fare than even in London, or in a country town on the Continent. In London the smallest cab fare is one shilling (twenty-five cents); in Key West you can ride a short distance for a dime, and a longer distance for fifteen cents. The conveyance is a very light and very dirty wagonette on four wheels. The driver is as dirty as his vehicle, and his horse resembles those poor skeletons which are blindfolded and pushed into the arena at a Cuban bull fight.

Such tropical fruits as the sugar apple, the guava, mango, the soft and sweet sapadillo, thrive in Key West. The climate and salt atmosphere combine to make it the home of the palm. There are many tall, slender and beautiful cocoanut trees, some with their graceful leaves waving as high as eighty feet in the air, making an interesting and pretty picture against a cloudless sky.

But the cultivation of the cocoanut in Key West might be made very profitable as well as picturesque. At present there are comparatively few of such trees; their cultivation ought to be encouraged. The tree has no tap root, and will thrive on a thin soil. It comes into bearing eight or ten years from the nut; and after that the fruit grows and increases every month in the year. Like the orange tree, the older it gets the more it bears. A bearing cocoanut grove costs less to care for than an orange grove, and the revenue therefrom is greater. It requires no cultivation, and is as hardy in its section as the cabbage palmetto, that grows everywhere in Florida. Besides, cocoanuts can be shipped in any month of the year; they require no packing, no care in handling, and they will bear transportation for thousands of miles. There is a good market for green cocoanuts in these parts as well as for matured ones. When the nut is fully grown, but green, it contains about two glasses of clear juice, milk we call it in the North. It is considered a healthful beverage in the tropics and sells per glass in the streets of Havana for the equivalent of five cents.

Nature has favored Key West with a perfect climate. It is surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico, as blue and as beautiful as the famous Danube. Nature in fact has done everything she could to make the place desirable as a residence for man, but man has done little or nothing for himself, thus far, and if the truth must be told, notwithstanding its favorable natural conditions and its lovely surroundings, Key West is not yet a desirable place to live in. It has no sanitary laws, for nothing whatever has been done with a view to sanitation, and yet with the salt ocean all around the little island, how easy it would be to make it healthy and clean, for it is neither one nor the other. There is no such thing as system, no sewerage whatever in the town excepting one iron pipe which leads from one hotel, the Russell House, to the sea, and even that one pipe is allowed to clog occasionally.

A liberally illustrated and large edition of the Equator-Democrat was issued in 1889, which presents a very rose-colored view of Key West. In that paper I find that “the pleasant streets running at right angles are as smooth and hard as adamant.” I am not certain that I am very well acquainted with adamant, but I know that the streets of Key West are unpaved and that they are the roughest and the dirtiest streets I ever saw. As I have lived in Baltimore, in New York and in New Orleans, my testimony ought to be accepted on such a theme. I speak of Key West in fine weather; what it must be in wet weather I don’t like to imagine. If nothing but very deep ruts, holes and great gullies in the roadway resemble adamant then is Key West adamantine beyond doubt.

There is not a boot-black in the town; none is needed. Nobody thinks of blacking his shoes; it would be absurd. I spoke on this point with a young New Yorker who hails from the fashionable precincts of Madison avenue. He is a business man who is liberal in the matter of money, usually dressy, and extremely neat in his person. He has been in Key West six months, and in all that time not a brush has passed over his shoes.

I regret to differ with my learned and courteous friend, the editor of the Democrat, on the subject of hotels. Let him speak for himself. He says that “The Russell House, the leading hotel in the city, is second to none in the State in accommodations.” Now I had an idea that St. Augustine and Jacksonville and Tampa were in Florida, and that there were such hotels “in the State” as the Ponce de Leon and The Cordova at St. Augustine, and the new Tampa Bay Hotel at Tampa Bay, not to mention a number of other first-class houses “in the State.”

Directly opposite the Russell is the Duval House. You may never have heard of it; it is not one-third the size of the Russell House. I know nothing of the apartments of the Duval. for I investigated no further than the dining-room, but that was enough to establish its good reputation. It will be a long time before I forget how beautifully garnished a dish they made at the Duval of a red snapper, and the delicious flavor of their omelette soufflée remains with me still. The Duval is presided over by a Cuban lady, Mrs. Bolio, who kept for years one of the leading hotels in Havana. She is evidently a woman who knows what good living is.

Cigar-making is a very large and important industry in Key West. The place was selected for cigar-making because the climate is suited to the “curing” of tobacco in the leaf, and because it is near Havana. There is something also in the name. Everybody does not know that this (Spanish) island is United States territory, and some smokers if they see a “Key West” label on a box of cigars believe, without stopping to think, that they are smoking a foreign-made cigar. Now a Key West cigar if made from Havana tobacco of fine quality has just as good a flavor as if it were made in Cuba, but the Key West cigar can be sold at a lower price because the import duty on cigars is much higher than the duty on the raw material.

Having the same climate as Havana, the best climate in the world for tobacco curing, and the cigars being made by Cubans, who are the best cigar-makers in the world, Key West turns out just as good cigars as can be produced anywhere—provided always that tobacco of the first quality is used. And the cigar need not consist entirely of Havana tobacco. A cigar of choice flavor is made of a mixture of tobaccos—Havana “filler” and “binder,” with, say, a “Connecticut seed” or Sumatra wrapper.

The manufacture of cigars has without doubt aided largely in building up the business of Key West. One authority says that there are two hundred factories, employing five thousand operatives, and transacting a business amounting to seven millions of dollars annually. But this report may be exaggerated. However, here are some more figures, and if the reader is mathematically inclined he can draw his own conclusions: Key West during 1890 turned out one hundred and forty millions of cigars.

There are very few Spanish or American cigarmakers in Key West; the majority are Cubans, with a very small sprinkling of negroes. There are so many factories and so many operatives that, although it is a cigar-producing place, very few cigars indeed are sold at retail. Everybody smokes, every one invites you to smoke; cigars are almost as free as the air. It would be a paradise for a young dude who has a slender purse and who is addicted to the weed.

Upon the courteous invitation of P. Pohalski & Co., who have a branch in Havana, with headquarters in Warren street, New York, I paid a visit to their factory, which is one of the largest in Key West, and I was much interested in what I saw. Pohalski & Co. erected their own factory, upon their own ground, and it is one of the most imposing edifices in Key West. They also built upon their own land a number of small houses which they rent to their workmen at a moderate figure; for its size it is quite a respectable colony.

Although very large, employing several hundred hands, the factory is orderly, exceedingly clean and neat, showing good government. Perfect system reigns throughout the entire establishment. The first floor is used for the business offices, for cases of tobacco and for the “strippers;” the whole of the second floor is occupied by cigar makers, and the third floor is used by the “packers,” also for curing leaf tobacco and for storing cigars in boxes.

A “stripper” is one who, with the dexter finger and thumb of the right hand pulls the stem from the leaf while the leaf is damp, the leaf being held in the left hand. It is done by a dexterous and quick movement, not a vestige of the leaf remaining on the stem. The most costly leaves, for wrappers, are only entrusted to experienced operators. The strippers in this factory are numbered by scores. They are all females, all Cubans, and range in age from ten years old to women of fifty.

It is not a pleasing sight to one who associates woman with habits of refinement, to see the older women, while at their work of stripping, smoke long, thick cigars. They hold the cigar between their teeth and seldom remove it, not even to talk. They are rough-looking cigars, rolled into shape by the women themselves from the leaves they are stripping.

A more pleasing picture is presented on the cigar-making floor, above. You will be surprised upon entering to see a man standing erect in the centre of the room, book in hand, reading aloud. You cannot help but notice, although Spanish may be Greek to you, that the reader’s voice is powerful and well trained, reaching to the extreme corners and to the most distant ears on the vast floor. He is a professional reader. The several hundred men club together, each paying a nominal sum for the reader’s services. In this way, while engaged in their work, they hear the news of the day and are regaled with the latest Spanish novel.

“Packing” cigars is a technical term. It is not simply to tie them up with pretty silk ribbons and place them neatly in a box. A packer is one who assorts the colors also. It is a very nice and delicate piece of work. It demands a good eye for color and long experience, and then it can only be done in a certain light, of course not by artificial light, nor unless the day is bright.

An overcast, murky and heavy sky is not good for packing—assorting, it might be called. In a few hundred loose cigars placed on a table ready for “packing,” the casual observer will probably see only three or four colors. They are first assorted roughly to bring together those of decided colors—light brown, medium, dark brown, etc. Then a pile of dark or light shades is gone over again and again until the different piles of cigars are alike, as if they were all made from one leaf and turned out by machinery. The packer also discards a cigar that is not perfectly made, or one not uniform with the rest. A special few, exact as to form and hue, are selected for the top row, to catch and please the eye of the smoker when the lid of the box is raised. A good packer is paid better than any other operative in the business. Men and women are employed in it, some of them earning as high as twenty-five or thirty-five dollars per week.

The sponge trade is also a very large and important industry here. The sponges are found in this part of the Gulf of Mexico, and the trade gives employment to a great many people. I visited the largest sponge house, that of Arapian & Co., and saw there in different stages, sponges valued at a quarter of a million dollars. Such a stock of sponges, as you can easily imagine, occupies much space. My only surprise was to find such valuable merchandise housed in a light frame building. A fire would spread easily, and the whole would be rapidly consumed.

I have spoken of the dirty, unpaved streets of Key West; it would be unfair not to mention a lovely drive which you can take for a few miles on the edge of the Gulf. You go around the old forts, you see lighthouses and other interesting objects en route, the bracing air from the Gulf fans your cheeks, the ocean is spread out before you, and if you return in the early evening, and near dinner time, you will most likely be favored with a grand sunset, and you will surely have a keen appetite.

Key West is reached from New York by steamers of the Mallory line, and from New Orleans by New Orleans and Havana steamers, but decidedly the best and most luxurious way of going to the island is by the Plant line of steamers which leave Tampa, Florida and Havana, Cuba, three times a week. The “Mascotte” and “Olivette” were built for this route. They are both staunch, swift, beautifully appointed ships, whose commanders were in the Atlantic service for years, the “Olivette” being the fastest boat of her size in the world—a model vessel.

If you are going to Key West for pleasure—it is possible for people to go there with that end in view—you will go from New York to Jacksonville via the Pennsylvania and Atlantic coast lines and there take the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railroad, although part of this “railway” journey consists of a sail on the Gulf of Mexico, from Tampa.

The island, with all its objectionable features, has churches of different denominations, it has convents, good schools, and has one large substantial and beautiful brick and stone building for a custom house, for which the government appropriated one hundred thousand dollars.

Key West has a police force numbering fourteen officers, including men of all colors and several nationalities.

ST. AUGUSTINE.

As to other changes, much land has been reclaimed from the river, miles of roadway have been asphalted and paved with wooden blocks; the old fort is being restored, for which work the government has appropriated $15,000; many new houses have been built, all of coquina and in the Moorish style; to the oldest house in the town has been added a new stone tower; there has been erected a new City Hall, which includes a fine market; and to crown it all, as it were, there is a new church, a Memorial Presbyterian Church, built in memory of the beautiful daughter Mr. Flagler lost two years ago. The structure is so attractive, so pleasing to the eye, that in driving away from it you find yourself constantly turning around to keep its graceful architectural lines in view as long as possible.

It is probably not possible to enhance the splendor of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, the drawing-room of which, with its magnificent proportions, its onyx fire-place, its ceiling decorations, its rich carpets and furniture, and its rare paintings by Bridgman, Koppay, and other artists, is not rivalled by any other hotel in the world. To call it palatial is no compliment to “the Ponce” parlor, for I have seen no apartments in royal palaces that are more pleasing, and I have been favored with a view of many palaces in many countries. But the approaches to the great hotel and its own grounds have been improved and are now finished.

The same remarks will apply to the exterior of the Alcazar Hotel, the smooth and pleasant walk around the outside of which measures just half a mile. The colored boys know: they use it semi-occasionally for a foot or bicycle race: “twice around the Alcazar is one mile” they will tell you.

One of the novel features of this establishment is a swimming pool, into which the sulphur water rushes up from the artesian well with great force. There is room in the pool (40 by 120 feet) for scores of swimmers, and there is always a number of visitors looking from the galleries above on the lively scene below. With the mercury ranging between 70 and 80 the sulphur water is indeed refreshing; and they say it is quite invigorating. Temperature of the water, 75 degrees.

In the Hotel Cordova you will notice some changes, for the indefatigable manager, E. N. Wilson, is never content with his efforts. There is a new dining-room for instance. The best seems not good enough for Mr. Wilson, and his critical eye is always finding some way to improve the house and to add to its comfort. He has redecorated the parlor. The walls are now richly papered but the tints are not satisfactory—to Mr. Wilson. The furniture and carpets are in dark colors, so Mr. Wilson later on contemplates covering the walls with white and gold for an artistic contrast. Expensive? Yes, I should say so, but who cares for the expense? Mr. Flagler has a very long purse and Mr. Wilson has carte blanche. If the owner in planning these hotels had thought only of pecuniary profit probably they would never have come into existence in their present form. It is an idea with him to beautify the ancient city, and a half million dollars more or less make little or no difference to Mr. Flagler. Yet his hotels are conducted with a careful regard of business-like methods, although this is not apparent to the casual observer.

By the way, I have the very best of reasons for knowing that Mr. Flagler’s private acts of charity are many and munificent. After making full and proper inquiry into a case presented to him he always responds, but he never wants his generous acts to be made public. He will not thank me for this “mention,” I feel sure, but it is his due and possibly no harm can come from printing it.

Mr. Flagler has bought all the land around and about his three hotels, so that nobody can erect anything anywhere near him. He is not the man to do anything by halves.

The sitting-room in which this is penned is one of a suite I occupy in the castellated tower on a corner of the Hotel Cordova. The walls of the building are of gray coquina. Outside each window is a small and separate “kneeling balcony,” protected by ornamental iron railings, painted a reddish brown—such balconies as you see in some buildings in Madrid. The windows have white lace curtains and the shades are alternate blue and crimson—contrasting pleasantly with the neutral tint of the outer walls. To the east, within stone’s throw, is Cordova Park; to the west, the same distance, is the one-acre park of the Alcazar, with its tropical foliage, pretty walks and handsome fountain; while diagonally opposite, same distance again (about one hundred feet), loom up the terra-cotta turrets, towers, arches and gabled roofs of the Ponce de Leon Hotel, with its grand park of four and a half acres. This may convey some idea of the situation; to describe the scene requires the pen if not the pencil of an artist.

The Cordova drawing-room has its tables and chairs, and it contains some books also; not odd volumes picked up haphazard, but books bought and selected by an artist, book-worm and connoisseur. In the Cordova library you will find “Burke’s Peerage,” “Almanach de Gotha,” “Webster’s Royal Red Book,” “Kelly’s Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes,” “The County Families of the United Kingdom,” Debrett’s “House of Commons and the Judicial Bench,” “Castles and Abbeys of England” and “Stately Homes of England.” I have enumerated only a few of the ordinary volumes relating to Great Britain, but there are also rare and valuable tomes richly and beautifully illustrated, descriptive of life and scenes in different countries. For instance, one set in three volumes is “Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture at the International Exhibition,” by J. B. Waring, published in 1862. This mammoth work is richly illuminated, bound in red morocco, picked out with gold, and measures one foot by a foot and a half. It probably cost in London twenty-five pounds, and gives one some idea of the money and good taste expended in selecting the Cordova library. If one is fond of instructive books his taste can be gratified at the Cordova.

At the majority of hotels you eat ordinary oranges, brought to the table direct from the store-room: at the Cordova only Indian River oranges are used, selected “Indian Rivers,” and instead of coming direct from the store-room they come from a refrigerator. After this process they become Grateful and Comforting, to quote the names which Epps, the famous cocoa man, gave his two daughters. Perfect quiet reigns in the dining-room. The waiters are governed, well governed, by a head waiter whose head is level. He would even satisfy that “cranky critic,” as he has been called, Max O’Rell. The men, when serving dinner, wear dress coats, black trousers and white cravats. Instead of a loose waistcoat they wear a broad black sash around the waist, and instead of noisy boots they wear shoes having cloth uppers and rubber soles—black tennis shoes. Not a word is heard from the servants, except in polite response to an order, and they glide about like dark angels.

ABOUT TAMPA.

Peninsulas have always been thought desirable because of their climate, which gives them advantages over other localities, and among peninsulas Florida is unrivalled because of its latitude and particularly as it is affected by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The investment of large capital in constructing a new hotel in Florida with the expectation of drawing to it the requisite patronage, demanded a knowledge of the requirements of winter tourists who visit the place for health or pleasure. Those requirements have been carefully studied by Mr. H. B. Plant, president of the Plant Investment Company, acting under the advice of eminent scientists, in the selection of Tampa. The new hotel is situated on the west side of the Hillsborough river where it empties into Tampa bay, opposite to and facing the city, which is within easy walking distance. From the river to the front of the hotel there are extensive lawns and flower beds, with orange, palm and other tropical trees, the hotel grounds and property including twenty-two acres. At the rear of the house there is a long stretch of pine lands.

As you view the house at a distance, from the deck of a steamer, or from a car window, with its long stretch of brick front, its iron and stone trimmings, its many towers with great and gorgeous silver-bronzed, balloon-shaped domes, each surmounted by a shining gold crescent, it impresses you at once as being a great oriental palace. And this idea is aided by the palms and other tropical trees and shrubs by which it is surrounded.

The oriental idea also strikes you as you enter. There is a grand “office,” the ceilings are supported by stout marble columns, and the music-room, the drawing-room, and all the minor rooms on the main floor are furnished in the very best taste, the matter of expense never seeming to be a question with those who selected the furniture and decorations in different parts of the world. It is safe to say that very few winter or summer resort hotels in this country are as richly furnished.

The hotel has been most thoroughly constructed and is practically fireproof, the outer and inner walls being of brick, with steel beams and concrete floors. There has been the most approved scientific work in drainage and plumbing, and there is an abundant supply of good water. On each floor the wide hall extends the entire length of the main building—512 feet. There are no inside rooms. Every room has the sun during some portion of the day, and a large number of suites have private baths. The house is heated by steam, in addition to which there are open fire-places in the rooms. The latest improvements have been introduced in lighting.

The other day I was in the Savannah depot of the Savannah, Florida and Western railroad waiting for the Florida special vestibuled train, when I heard a colored “depot hand” say that he wished the Tampa Bay Hotel had been built elsewhere. “Why, may I ask?” “Well,” answered my civil and sable informant, “I am tired of handlin’ de stuff for dat hotel; we’se been a doin’ it in dis yer depot for de whole year. But it’s comin’ putty near de end now, I guess. Las’ Saturday der went thro’ de depot three whole cyars filled with nutting else but cyarpets, all for dat house.” These remarks give one some faint idea of the size of the new hotel.

Mr. Plant did a great deal for Tampa when he ran his railroad down there, his lines of steamers from Tampa to Havana and Mobile have greatly helped the prosperity of the place, and now he has crowned his good work by putting up a magnificent hotel utterly regardless of the cost. If there was not already a Plant City in Florida, I should suggest to change the name of Tampa to Plant City. The house will accommodate four hundred guests; the rates are five dollars per day. It is only open during the winter, from Christmas until the first of April. But do not go to Tampa without your summer clothes.

All the above relates to the big new hotel at Tampa Bay, but all of it is written at the Inn, in Port Tampa, distant from Tampa Bay proper nine miles. The Inn is “little,” it accommodates only seventy-five guests, but it is a gem of a hotel. It is built on, or rather over, the water on piles, and is like an island, being actually surrounded by water. There is always a pleasant breeze on one side of the house, and a breeze is very grateful in this latitude. As I write, the mercury in a thermometer hanging outside my bedroom window marks 75 degrees; this is at 5 P.M., Saturday, January 31. We sleep with open windows, and nothing more than your pajama or a sheet is necessary for a covering.

Two sides of the dining-room are composed entirely of sliding-windows through which you can see wild ducks and fish in great quantities. I have seen wild ducks hauled in by the waiters through the open windows of this dining-room. You can throw a line into the water as you sit at dinner and if it be properly baited you will probably find a mullet at the end of the cord before you reach your café noir.

It goes without saying that there are good sailing and fishing at Port Tampa: Spanish mackerel and the pompano abound, the latter conceded by epicures to be one of the most exquisitely flavored fish in the world. Here also is the famous tarpon—Silver King he has been christened. In fact Port Tampa is a very paradise for sportsmen. It is easy to supply the table with oysters, fish and game in profusion. The table by the way is liberally provided, and the service by Swiss and French waiters is good.

The dining-room of the Tampa Inn reminds you of the dining-room of the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort, not for its size, but for its water surroundings, and the scene outside brings up recollections of the Surf Hotel at Fire Island. Picnic Island, across the Gulf one mile, might be a bit of Long Island. But there the similarity ends because the Inn, unlike the Surf Hotel, is a new house and is luxuriously furnished.

Steamers leave here weekly (every Tuesday) for Mobile, and tri-weekly (Monday, Thursday and Saturday), for Key West and Havana.

The railway depot conveying you to Tampa Bay (frequent daily trains), is at the door of the hotel, and from this same depot you can get a through car to Jacksonville or to New York.

The rates at the Inn are four and five dollars a day. It is proposed to keep it open all the year.

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA.

There’s a “History of Monterey County” by E. S. Harrison. I didn’t know before I came here and looked into it that Monterey was the first place settled in the State of California; that the first custom house in the

State (now an old rookery) was established here; that Monterey was once not only a bustling city, but the capital of the State. It is not a wholly deserted village now, but its commercial glory, like that of Newport, R. I., which was once a greater port of entry than New York, has departed, never to return. But Monterey will always be dear to the hearts of Californians, from its historic associations and connections.

“The first European lady to come to California,” says Harrison, “was the wife of Governor Fages, who arrived in Monterey in 1783. Their child, born about 1784, was probably the first child born in California of European parents.”

Monterey is one hundred and twenty-six miles from San Francisco, and is reached in four hours by the Coast Division of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. On the way, in San Mateo county (en passant, what musical names all these counties and mountains have), within ten to forty miles from the starting point, Fourth and Townsend streets, you pass the rural homes of San Francisco’s millionaires. Some are set in great forests of oak surrounded by acres of flowers in perennial bloom. Next, the beautiful city of San José comes in view, and a flourishing city it appears to be from the car windows. As the train rolls along you keep in sight for many miles the dome of the Lick Observatory, which glistens in the sunlight on the summit of Mount Hamilton.

And then you haven’t eyes enough to take in and enjoy the beautiful views of ocean, river, valley and mountain as the train dashes along—the Coast Range mountains on your left, on the right the Santa Cruz mountains, with the sun setting behind them—a glorious moving panorama.

After passing what is called the most fertile valley in the State Monterey is reached, if that be your destination, but there is a more important station one mile this side of Monterey. When the conductor calls out “Hotel del Monte” very few passengers in the cars remain seated, and the train speeds on to the sleepy old town of Monterey, almost empty.

The first action which the Pacific Improvement Company took when they concluded to make of this place a summer and winter resort was to purchase some land for the purpose, so they purchased seven thousand acres. Part of this domain was a forest, and of this they selected for their hotel “garden” a simple matter of one hundred and twenty-six acres. Forty acres of this they cultivated in flower-beds, lawns, vegetables and fruit; the rest they allowed to remain as nature left it, after hiring the services of a landscape gardener to lay out within their gates a few miles for drives and paths.

Then it occurred to them that it would be well to have a grand outside drive as an additional attraction, so they made one, cutting away mountain, forest and bluff; going through the woods, four or five miles; skirting the ocean for the same distance; altogether a nice little post-prandial drive of seventeen miles. But this is not much—for California. The drive being private property it is used only for the guests of the Hotel del Monte, the owners of which keep it in the best order, and in summer time have it watered. It is macadamized and in as good condition as the drives in Central Park, New York.

The road winds toward the bay through a forest of oaks and pines. For two or three miles it will be cool, dark, shaded and sweet smelling, and presently you get a view of the ocean. If the wind is high, as it was on the twenty-second of March, you will see foaming white-caps in the distance, and the spray dashing wildly on the bare brown rocks in the foreground, making a picture which, on the day we saw it, was awfully grand. I don’t mean this in the sense that girls do when they

say a thing is “awfully nice;” I mean that the boisterous waves were almost frightful with their impetuous rush and their terrible roar.

To quote dear old Fitz-Greene Halleck, whose statue in Central Park few recognize:

It was a habit of my predecessor on the Home Journal, General George P. Morris, to publish annually this sweet song of Halleck’s in the Home Journal during the first week of March. It was a singular fancy of Morris’s and it pleased his brother poet.

But I am getting away from my story—and the surf. The seals didn’t seem to mind the roaring surf or howling wind. Their unearthly bark formed part of the grand chorus. They tossed their heads and rolled their ungainly bodies about with all the grace at their command, which is not saying much for their sylph-like movements. No; water is their element.

If you expect to see the seals of the same color as the sealskin sacques worn by women, you may not see the seals at all, for they match in color with the brownish gray rocks on which they romp. They have not gone through the process of “London dyeing.” I didn’t take the trouble to get out of the carriage and go down to the shore, so in this instance I accepted the driver’s word that there were five hundred seals on the rocks.

The cultivated grounds of the Hotel del Monte astonish you with their size and beauty and with the neatness and order in which they are kept. Probably not elsewhere is there such variety in horticulture. Everything from everywhere seems to thrive here. Nor do I know of any section of country where there are such noble oaks and pines, but probably the company claim too much when they say that “the garden is the finest, the most gorgeous, the richest and most varied in all the world.” A few years have elapsed since I examined Kensington and Kew closely, but it seems to me that the Tuileries gardens, which I saw one year ago, are richer, and I know that the gardens in Hyde Park, through which I strolled last August, are more pleasing to the eye and to the sense of smell. I speak of the floral display only; it must be remembered, however, that the Del Monte gardens are not at their best in March.

The trees are wonderful. I carry with me not only a thermometer but a tiny tape measure, the latter in my pocket. I asked the driver to stop as we were driving through the grounds, while I measured a pine and I found that it was four and a half yards in circumference near the ground. The driver told me how tall it was, but I will not quote him as I’m not giving you “California stories.” This pine was not pointed out nor did I select it for its size. There were others within a few feet of where this giant stood just as large, and for all I know there are hundreds on the ground much larger.

Of course the palm abounds, all trees of tropical growth are here; there are calla lilies for borders, violets, heliotrope, nasturtium, honeysuckle in wild profusion, and this in March, mind you. Is there ivy? “Well, rather,” as an Englishman might answer such a question. A leaf now lies on my table which measures five inches across. The grounds are in charge of a skilled landscape gardener with a force of thirty-five men—English, American and Chinese.

Foreigners from other lands may rail against the Chinese as much as they please, and our legislators may be right in excluding them lest they overrun the country, but it must be said in their favor that they are a peaceful, industrious set, and there are no better servants for indoor or outdoor work. Under certain conditions, however, they are as obstinate as mules. When you engage them you must be exceedingly careful in giving them instructions, for they will always continue to do what they are at first told to do; you cannot change their ways.

Mr. George Schönewald, manager of Hotel del Monte, while we were chatting in his office, illustrated it to me in this way: “Observe that Chinaman wiping carefully the casing of that white door. He was told when he first came here that he was to do that sort of work at this time of day, and if the heavens fall he’ll do it. If I were to ask him this minute to leave that door and polish this plate glass window he might obey, but it would upset him for the day, if not for all time. If you change your mind and want the work done in a different way you had better change your Chinaman, you can’t change their ways. But seven Chinamen will do the work of fourteen white men.”

And this brings me to the fact that nearly all the walls and all the interior woodwork of these great buildings are painted white. The lack of color becomes a little tiresome to the eye, but one thing comforts you, it is kept white—not a mark, not a spot to mar its perfection. Chinamen are always washing either doors, windows, surbase, or whatever part of the floor is not carpeted; all is pure white except the floor of the beautiful dining-room, which is of dark English oak kept highly polished.

The series of buildings is in the modern Gothic style, the main building three hundred and fifty feet front, with a central tower eighty feet high and wings or annexes two hundred and eighty feet long, showing an entire floor area of sixteen acres. An acre or two, more or less, is nothing—in California. The bed-room in which this is written is an ordinary room here, eighteen by sixteen feet. Even the marble wash-basin is worth measuring—three feet three in circumference. Running water, gas, fireplaces; and closets built with partition walls in every room. There are five hundred and ten rooms, and seven hundred people can be accommodated comfortably.

I am surprised here, as I have been elsewhere in California, at the low rates which obtain at hotels. A placard on the door of this well-furnished room, with beautiful walls and ceiling and a luxurious bed, reads: “Rate for this room, with board, for one person $3.50; for two $6.50. With bath-room $4 and $7 per day.” And in the bath-room there appears to be an inexhaustible supply of boiling water. There is no charge made in the ladies’ billiard room, which adjoins the parlor; no charge for use of boats on the twenty-acre lake.

If the plumbing is right, and so it appears to be, there is no trouble with the question of drainage, the ocean being at the door. The drinking water is brought from Carmel river, eighteen miles distant, in the mountains. A ton of ice per day is made on the premises. Some of the vegetables are raised near the hotel, and there is a dairy farm connected with the property measuring untold acres.

Native wines are sold at Hotel del Monte lower than I’ve seen them either here or abroad. It’s easy to be a “swell” at Del Monte. A half bottle of Zinfandel is opened and served at table for fifteen cents, and a very good wine it is, too, so far as pleasing my palate goes. But I don’t profess to be so well versed in wines as the late Sam Ward or the present Ward McAllister. There is a secret, however, in the low charge for California wine at Hotel del Monte—the company have their own vineyards. What haven’t they got? They have nothing less than a Steinway concert grand in the parlor and another in the ball-room.

There’s a feature that almost escaped being put down, and yet it is worthy of special mention. To the first floors in the two annexes you neither ascend nor descend any stairs; nor do you to the second floor. To the first floor you descend an inclined hall or arcade; to the second you ascend an inclined arcade. If you have a room even on the third floor you only walk up one flight of stairs, unless you prefer the elevator.

This is not a new idea, however. I remember being shown through an old, unused palace in Berlin which was constructed in the same way, A member of the royal house was weak in the knees from rheumatism and so was rolled on a sedan chair up and down in this way. The porter at this hotel, wheeling his truck “upstairs” loaded with trunks, reminded me of the rheumatic royalty.

In all hotels recently constructed there is an electric bell as well as an electric button in every room. If you leave word to be called in the morning, there’s no rapping outside your door—rapping loud enough to awaken every sleeper near your apartment. There is an electric button in the office which connects with a bell in your room, and to this call you will respond. There is no escape from it; you must get out of bed to stop the ringing.

The first Hotel del Monte, opened in 1880, was destroyed by fire: the new house was erected four years ago. The present manager, Mr. George Schönewald, opened the first house and superintended the construction of the second. As his name indicates, he is not to the manor born. He arrived in this country twenty-five years ago without a penny in his pocket, but with a determination to make a position for himself. There is no secret in his success. Anybody can gain success who will follow the Schönewald method. It was not “blind luck “ with him, but industry, unceasing industry, directed with unusual intelligence.

Schönewald fitted himself thoroughly for his position. On his arrival in this country he decided to be a practical confectioner, and not long after he received the highest salary ever paid in the State to a confectioner. Then he took to cooking and earned the highest salary ever paid to a cook in the State. Step by step has he moved from the very bottom round of the ladder to the management of one of the largest and finest hotels in the country.

Schönewald is a worker. He is supposed to take three meals a day, but sometimes his breakfast is not touched till late in the afternoon. From my window I have seen him driving about rapidly in a buggy before my toilet was completed; and your humble servant, as a general rule, is out of bed before seven A.M. The interests of the company first, his own comfort last, seems to be this manager’s motto.

Yes, your Germans are workers. Mrs. Schönewald is her husband’s helpmeet: she fills the position of housekeeper at Hotel del Monte, and that probably accounts for the bed-rooms being so comfortably furnished—a rocker here, an easy, arm-chair there, with a neat white “tidy” on the upholstered back. There’s nothing like a woman’s eye, a woman’s thoughtfulness in providing all the tasteful etceteras which make a home comfortable and complete.

I will close with a clipping from the tourist book, “To the Golden Gate,” issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad:—“The Eastern traveler coming to California’s coast and failing to see ‘Del Monte’ has indeed missed not everything, but a goodly part.”