General Trednoke’s house was built by Spanish missionaries in the sixteenth century; and in its main features it was little altered in three hundred years. In a climate where there is no frost, walls of adobe last as long as granite. The house consisted, practically, of but one story; for although there were rooms under the roof, they were used only for storage; no one slept in them. The plan of the building was not unlike that of a train of railway-cars,--or, it might be more appropriate to say, of emigrant-wagons. There was a series of rooms, ranged in a line, access to them being had from a narrow corridor, which opened on the rear veranda. Several of the rooms also communicated directly with each other, and, through low windows, gave on the veranda in front; for the house was merely a comparatively narrow array of apartments between two broad verandas, where most of the living, including much of the sleeping, was done. Logically, there can be nothing uglier than a Spanish-American dwelling of this type. But, as a matter of fact, they appear seductively beautiful. The thick white walls acquire a certain softness of tone; the surface scales off here and there, and cracks and crevices appear. In a damp country, like England, they would soon become covered with moss; but moss is not to be had in this region, though one were to offer for it the price of the silk velvet, triple ply, which so much resembles it. Nevertheless, there are compensations. The soil is inexhaustibly fertile, and its fertility expresses itself in the most inveterate beauty. Such colors and varieties of flowers exist nowhere else, and they continue all the year round. Climbing vines storm the walls, and toss their green ladders all over it, for beauty to walk up and down. Huge jars, standing on the verandas, emit volcanoes of lovely blossoms; and vases swung from the roof drip and overflow with others, as if water had turned to flowers. In the garden, which extends over several acres at the front of the house, and, as it were, makes it an island in a gorgeous sea of petals, there are roses, almonds, oranges, vines, pomegranates, and a hundred rivals whose names are unknown to the present historian, marching joyfully and triumphantly through the seasons, as the symphony moves through changes along its central theme. Everything that is not an animal or a mineral seems to be a flower. There are too many flowers,--or, rather, there is not enough of anything else. The faculty of appreciation wearies, and at last ceases to take note. It is like conversing with a person whose every word is an epigram. The senses have their limitations, and imagination and expectation are half of beauty and delight, and the better half; otherwise we should have no souls. A single violet, discovered by chance in the by-ways of an April forest in New England, gives a pleasure as poignant as, and more spiritual than, the miles upon miles of Californian splendors.