"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Adams before we had a chance to step out on the platform. "Do you know who was the first man we saw on Mexican soil? The first man we met on the way? Yes, yes, he was a Cossack from the Terek! The most genuine Terek Cossack, gentlemen! Speaks excellent Russian. But not a word of Spanish!"

The Adamses led us to the "California Auto Court" (an automobile inn which was also a camp) in which they had been living since the day before, had become friends with its owner, had spent the whole day with him, and had learned from him all the San Diego news—about this year's harvest of oranges, about the oil business, whether the flow of tourists had increased, and many other useful bits of information indispensable to every thoughtful traveller.

The owner of the camp met us as if we were his favourite relatives. We must suppose that the Adamses had presented us in the most favourable light. After glad and lengthy effusions we left our belongings in the room assigned to us and went off to have dinner.

San Diego and San Pedro, which is located a hundred miles north, are the bases of the Pacific fleet of the United States. Sailors strolled about the streets. Solemn, lanky, and taciturn, they escorted their girls arm in arm. The happy little chits clung to their cavaliers, chattering and laughing.

We circled in our automobile around the restaurant we had selected, without finding a place where we could park our car. All the sites were occupied. There was no end of automobiles. Looking for a place to park, we drove farther and farther away from our restaurant, migrating from street to street. But the city was so full of automobiles that we could not find a place for just one more little, respectable, mouse-coloured automobile. It was one hell of a situation!

We drove to the very end of San Diego, where even the noises of the city did not reach, and in the darkness we heard only the roar of the ocean. Here we finally parked and went to the restaurant. We had to walk a half-hour to it. This is what happens occasionally in a country where there are twenty-five millions automobiles.

In the restaurant, holding on the fork a large piece of pale Christmas turkey, Mr. Adams solemnly exclaimed :

"Now, gentlemen, we have come to the very end of the United States. We cannot go any farther. From now on, no matter what we do, no matter where we go, we are going home, to New York! Let's eat this turkey to our health! We have already driven six thousand miles! Hurrah!"

PART V

BACK TO THE ATLANTIC

40 On the Old Spanish Trail

THE GENEROUS December sun poured its light on the gay city of San Diego, on its bright yellow bungalows built in the Spanish style with iron balconies and wrought-iron grilles over windows, on mowed lawns before houses, and on the decorative trees with their thick dark-green leafage at the entrance doors.

In the sheen of the clear morning stood the fleet in its roadstead. The torpedo boats were side by side, four abreast, as close together as bullets in a revolver clip. The bright grey lines of the old cruisers and battleships stretched to the edge of the horizon. The warm winter somnolence shackled the bay, and the high thin masts of the naval boats stood motionless in the pale blue sky. There were no dreadnoughts and none of the newest boats in sight. Perhaps they "were at the moment standing in San' Pedro, or maybe they had gone into the ocean for manoeuvres.

On the way to the ocean we saw beautifully cut streets with wide asphalt pavements, with sidewalks, with street lamps painted in aluminium paint. We saw a whole town, with canalization and water system, with gas and electricity brought to every part of the city; in a word, we saw a city with all its conveniences. But without houses. There was not a single house in this little town, where even the streets had been named.

This is how building lots are sold in America. Some large company buys the land where it supposes a new residential section or town will arise, brings it into the state we have just described, and sells the lots at a profit. Another company, which is occupied with the building of houses, will rig up for you in two months a wonderful Spanish house with striped awnings, with a bathroom on the first floor, with a bathroom on the second floor, with balconies, with a lamp before the house, and a fountain behind it; it will do everything; give them only your ten thousand dollars, if you have it. You don't have to pay cash; you can pay on the instalment system. But the great American God forbid that you lose your job and stop making payments!

"Gentlemen," Mr. Adams was saying solemnly, "you must remember that all the plants you see here—palms, pines, apple and lemon trees, every blade of grass—have been planted here by the hand of man. California was not at all a paradise; it was a desert. California was made by water, roads, and electricity. Deprive California of artificial irrigation for one week, and it will be impossible to repair this misfortune for years. It will again become a desert. We call California the Golden State. But it would be more correct to call it the state of man's remarkable labour. In this paradise it is necessary to toil endlessly, uninterruptedly; otherwise it will turn into a hell. Remember that, gentlemen! Water, roads, and electricity!"

At the ocean itself stood a lovely villa. On its doors shone a brass plate cleaner than the California sun: "Headquarters International Theosophist Society."

"No, no, gentlemen," cried Mr. Adams, "don't be surprised at that. Where you have water, roads, and electricity, it is easy to live. As you see, theosophists are not at all fools."

Opposite the beautiful beach which stretched for many miles stood long rows of cabins. Even now, in the winter, some of them were occupied. On their porches girls were sunning themselves, girls with insouciant faces, touchingly wild women who had run off to nature from their strait-laced and wealthy parents, from the madness and the clatter of large cities.

At the Old Spanish Mission we turned back toward the east, homeward.

A high brick cross stands here on a hill in honour of the Spanish monk whose name was Junipero Serra. At one time he had seized this land " for the glory of God and the king of Spain." From this hill one can see the entire city and the bay.

We drove over the Old Spanish Trail. Concrete, asphalt, and gravel have changed the old road considerably. We dare say, the conquistadores would not recognize these spots today. Where the feathered arrow of the Indian had whistled stands a petrol station, and the compressor breathes heavily, forcing the air into the automobile chamber. And] where the Spaniards, breathless under the weight of their leather and steel armour, dragged themselves along the scarcely noticeable trail now stretches the usual American highway, a road of high calibre, veering at times on turns.

Although we were now moving toward the east, the sun was becoming smaller each day. Again we saw the distant mountains, blue and lilac on the horizon. Again the evening twilight of the road came down and night began and the headlights gleamed. It was rather late when we arrived at El Centro.

The nasty little town of El Centro lies in the Imperial Valley. The entire valley is thirty by thirty miles in size. Lemons are picked here three times a year, oranges twice a year. In December and January vegetables, which do not grow anywhere else in the United States, are grown here. Now they were beginning to harvest lettuce, later they would harvest melons. In this paradisiacal valley, where large pale grapefruit ripen, in the valley permeated throughout with the opiating odour of lemons and oranges, in this valley goes on the most cruel exploitation of Mexicans and Filipinos in the entire world. And more than for its lettuce and oranges, this valley is known for its brutish treatment of strikers, of the unhappy, pauperized, always hungry Mexican seasonal workers and their numerous children. It is only twelve miles from here to Mexico.