From San Bernardino to Redlands is but half an hour’s ride through the bottom lands of the Santa Ana river. We approach rapidly the upper end of the valley, where the elevated mesa spreads out all around like a perfect ampitheater, backed by the loftiest mountains in Southern California. The mesa is now in close view, and Redlands, Lugonia, Terracina, Crafton, all different points of the same settlement, lie in front of us at an elevation of about fifteen hundred feet above the sea, like a map or extensive panorama, where roads, orchards and houses are so clearly and distinctly seen that they can be observed at a glance. The mesa land here slopes about four hundred feet to the mile, and the different orchards or settlements lie apparently one above the other, all in full view. If I am asked for the place in this part of the country with the finest view, with the freshest air, with the purest water, and with the coolest breezes, and where business and the comforts of life can be combined, I will say, and say it again, Redlands. In all these points there is nothing here that surpasses it, and few are the places indeed that even can pretend to equal it. From whatever point we stand, be it at the lower end of the railroad depot, at any orchard or home in the center of the settlement, or at the upper end close to the rolling hills, from every point we see every other point, some below, some above us, all equally distinct. And this extensive and magnificent view, that requires no tedious and tiresome climbing to see, extends away down the valley for sixty miles, over slightly rolling hills, over level mesas with their dark-green orchards and vineyards, over the steeper hills, over the lofty Sierra Madre range in the northwest. If we turn to the right we are immediately met by the snowy peaks and the bare walls of the San Bernardino range, here and there cut by the cañons and gorges of the tributaries of the Santa Ana river. The business part of Redlands is as neat and tasty as any,--brick blocks and cement sidewalks, horse cars, and water under pressure.