15 The 'Est, 'Est West

A Land where they have the b-est, the bigg-est, the fin-est, the high-est, the loveli-est of everything—so they say—the best oranges,the biggest prunes,the finest grapes,the tallest trees,the highest mountains,the loveliest weather—i.t.w.W. No, it's not Paradise. That's the 'est, 'est West.

California was named after an island in an old fairy-tale and in many ways the real California is a fairy-tale land. When gold was found in the rivers there, the story sounded like a fairy-tale, but it turned out to be a true tale. Many stories they tell nowadays about California still sound like fairy-tales to people in the East. Who would believe that there are trees in California so tall they seem to brush the sky—trees so big around that men have cut tunnels in them for automobiles to go through—trees so old that they were born before Christ was born! It's true, there are. They are called Giant Redwoods. How more wonderful than a fairy-tale it would be if those trees could tell us the true story of what has happened in their long lives!

Let us see how many 'ests we can count in California.

California is the longest State in the United States.If you could take up California and put it down on the Atlantic coast it would stretch from Florida to New York. That's one 'est.

California has the highest mountain in the United States. It is called Mount Whitney. That's two 'ests.

California has the lowest place in America. It's a valley, and the valley is more than two hundred feet lower than the ocean. It is so dry and so hot down in this hollow—this lowest spot—that nothing can live there, either animal or vegetable, except horned toads and lizards, both of which animals love heat—the more heat the better for them. Some people say they can even live in fire—but that's a fairy-tale. This low hot valley is called Death Valley. People usually keep away from it, but some men have strayed into it looking for gold and have lost their way, or some who wanted to get to the other side tried to cross it and before they could get out or reach the other side they have died of heat or thirst. That's why it is called Death Valley. That's longest, highest, lowest—three 'ests.

Besides Death Valley, California has another valley—but this is one of the loveliest valleys. It is called the Yosemite. It is a very deep trough, and streams of water fall over the edge into the trough from many high places. One of these falls turns to mist before it reaches the ground and looks like a huge veil of a bride, so it is called Bridal Veil Falls. Half a dozen of these waterfalls in the Yosemite Valley are higher than Niagara, and two of them tumble headlong a quarter of a mile from the top to the bottom of the valley, the highest falls in America—loveliest valley, highest falls; that makes two more 'ests.

California has, beside these 'ests, the sweetest oranges, the sourest lemons, the biggest grape-fruit, so they say, but they didn't come from California; they went there. There were no oranges and no lemons growing in America at all before white men came to this country. The first white people to settle in California came from the country of Spain on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In Spain oranges and lemons grew, and the people from Spain, called Spaniards, brought over orange and lemon plants and started them growing in California and also in Florida.

The Spaniards built houses like those back in Spain, with white stucco walls and red tile roofs and with the “back yards” in the center of the house. They gave their cities Spanish names—Los Angeles, which means The Angels; and they named many of their cities after saints—San Francisco after St. Francis, Santa Barbara after St. Barbara—for many of the Spaniards were priests, who built mission churches up and down the land.

The City of the Angels is now the largest city on the Pacific coast. Near the City of the Angels is Hollywood, the greatest (another 'est) moving-picture place i. t. w. W. There are 365 days in the year, as you know, but in Hollywood they say the sun shines on 400 days a year—fairy-tale land! At any rate, the weather is fine most of the time for taking moving pictures. This is one reason why it is such a good place for making movies, but another is that there are so many different kinds of natural scenery near-by. If they want to make a picture of a ship scene or shipwreck, there is the ocean. If they want to make a picture of the desert with camels and Arabs, there is the seashore. If they want to make a picture in the hot countries, there are palms and flowers. If they want to make pictures of winter scenes, all they have to do is to go to the mountains near-by and there is snow and ice all the year round.

The city of San Francisco on the coast north of Los Angeles is nearly as large as Los Angeles. It might have been larger, but not so many years ago a terrible earthquake shook down the city. The quake only lasted a few minutes, but in that few minutes it rocked the city, cracked open the ground, and knocked down buildings as if they were houses of children's blocks, and hundreds and hundreds of people were killed. But the worst thing the earthquake did was to upset stoves and lamps that started one of the worst fires ever known—fires that burned up most of the city. Were the people discouraged? Not at all. They collected their insurance money—and they built the city up again.

San Francisco has one of the finest harbors in the World. Its harbor is a long bay—fifty miles long. Ships enter the harbor from the Pacific Ocean through an opening called the Golden Gate. The city is built on many hills so steep that it is difficult for automobiles to climb them, but houses built on them have lovely views of the ocean, the bay, or the Golden Gate. Across the Golden Gate is a huge suspension bridge much bigger than the Brooklyn Bridge.

Ships enter and leave San Francisco for all the countries on and across the Pacific Ocean. Across the Pacific Ocean are China and Japan, and in days gone by so many Chinese came to the United States and landed in San Francisco that there is a part of the city called Chinatown, where there are Chinese houses and shops and theaters. Many Japanese too came to the United States from Japan, and bought farms where they raised fruits and vegetables.