tages are really charming, and, if some are a little overdone in ornamentation, the trouble is balanced by the real beauty which Nature affords in the gardens. Every plot of ground, no matter how small, has its row of orange-trees, its exotics, and its bed of native perennials. Roses abound summer and winter. The verbena-beds are cut down like grass thrice yearly, and spring up again stronger than ever. Sago, palm, Japanese persimmon, cacti of the rarest and most curious sort, grow freely, and so do the calla, the Spanish-bayonet, and the great whiteplumed pampas-grass. The gardener here rolls his garden and hardens the upper soil to prevent the evaporation in the summer of the wet deposited in the winter. Thus, in September he has a damp soil for his plants, although it has not rained for four months. Vines of every sort flourish luxuriantly. Heliotrope climbs twenty feet high. The two predominating native trees of the place are the live-oak and the sycamore. But the people plant a little shoot of the Australian blue-gum (Eucalyptus globulus), and in two years it becomes a shade-tree fifteen or twenty feet high. One of these trees, having a graceful green-brown foliage, will rise in five years above the surrounding verdure like a Lombardy poplar, and the rows which in Santa Barbara meet the eye everywhere are very marvels of rapid and healthy growth. To return to the houses. They cost from one to ten thousand dollars, and are built upon land ranging in price from six hundred to two thousand per quarter section. (The town is laid out in regular five-acre squares, and a fourth of either of these is thought to be a fair house-lot.) Of course, these are mere suggestive figures, but I believe them to be within the limits. Water is laid on from a reservoir at the mission above the town, and every householder has his hose and hydrant, and amuses himself twice or thrice daily by playing streams all over his lawns and shrubs. Among the residents there is the greatest friendliness, and, though the pursuit of excitement is often vain, a genial undercurrent of music, tea, and card parties, keeps the little community in amiable countenance. had been speaking of the charms of her new home, "and you must agree that I am right. Ah, if you only knew the depths of the joy that one feels when, after years of illness, the vigor of life returns and the world begins to smile again, you would not blame me! Indeed, I love these hills and valleys and all their changes, for their service to me. I came to know them while I was growing stronger, and now that I am well is it not natural that I should fancy they had a little heart for me in particular ?” At Santa Barbara you are expected to be a good horseman. Nothing there goes on out-of-doors without the aid of a mustang, even among the visitors, and of necessity the unfortunate who was never taught to ride stays in his hotel and counts his fingers. Even if you do not ride well you had better make a show of liking the exercise, else you will find yourself relegated to the whist-players-a position no man ever rises from in a public-house. It is a fine thing to have a neat little horse with a Mexican saddle upon his back brought to your door every morning, and to join a spirited party out for a gallop. Should you be inclined to ride fast and far, you will find companions always. Many of the young ladies do twenty and thirty miles daily, and now and then a fair prodigy arises who will do fifty miles, and yet comes to breakfast on the following morning at her accustomed hour. The roads are fair for horseback-riding, but not more than fair. You will go to Montecito, a beautiful little stretch of country just over the foot-hills from Santa Barbara, and clamber up to the Sulphur Springs, a rather wild spot in the side of a huge mountain six or eight miles off. Along the mesa, too, is a good place for a ride, especially if there is a cool, soft wind coming in from the sea to the southward. If your horse wants to try the virtues of a run, take him down upon the hard, drab-colored sands of the beach, and give him all the rein he desires. The ranchmen are always glad of visitors, and, if you have a desire for real information, go out ten or twelve miles toward Point Conception, and stop at A little apart from the town, and in all direc- any farmer's place, and feel sure that you will be tions, there are large play-farms and ranches hun- kindly received. In case you have no true knowldreds of acres in extent, and upon these are dwell-edge of agriculture, and are only glad of a gardenings about as rich and tasteful as one sees in the suburbs of Boston. They are surrounded by sweeping drives, and by a hundred umbrageous retreats, and are in all respects the results of the nicest taste. The hardships imposed by the harsh climates of the East have induced many a home-loving man to tear apart from his native place, and to come hither and begin anew. On every hand you encounter people possessing excellent health who assure you that two or three years ago their cases seemed to be hopeless, and death imminent, and who, upon describing the country which has afforded them safety and relief, speak of it with true affection, seeming to feel that it possesses for them an almost personal friendli er's success because of your ever-green generosity for your kind, you will be thrown into a state of rejoicing in the first ten minutes that you spend in the almond-orchards. It will be a real service to warn future visitors against permitting their astonishment and pleasure at what they hear to flow out immediately upon arrival, for it is often the case that a fruitraiser, justly proud of his successes, will detail his minor achievements first; and it can easily be conjectured that a stranger, who has expended great enthusiasm upon the mere preliminary surprises, may find himself entirely dry of gratification when the really astounding facts come out. For example, if you allow yourself to be carried away by the history of a sweet-potato that weighed sixteen good full pounds, or by the contemplation of a field of wheat growing its fourth volunteer There is another way of riding in Santa Barbara, which is quite as pleasant as galloping at a dashing speed with a laughing party. It consists in going off alone; a sulky notion, it is true, but in this charming place he would be a hard friend who would not allow you now and then the privilege of a ramble in solitude. Suppose you ride to the northeast of the town and ascend one of the line of sloping foot-hills that hedge in the plain. At the crest you stop your horse beneath one of the thickly-leaved live-oaks and look down at the village and plain you have left behind. Then, for the first time, perhaps, will the beauty of the whole landscape appear. It has been the good fortune of the writer to visit many towns in the country noted for the grandeur or the fineness of the scenes they rest among; and, while he remembers some whose sur crop, three tons to the acre, after having produced as they are elsewhere, and are commonly of a very (also in volunteer crops) twenty-five, sixty, and thir- | indifferent quality. ty bushels after the first seeded harvest-you will have to struggle hard to express anything like a fair amount of pleasure at seeing, an hour after, a patch of corn four inches high, which will not require another drop of rain to make it ear and ripen five months hence; and when you are introduced, later on, to a rich, little, half-acre garden, that is said to produce enough vegetables daily, except potatoes, for sixty and seventy farm-hands all the year round, the chances will be very good that you cannot utter a single word of delight at this greatest phenomenon of all; and that you and your host will separate at the gate with a marked coldness on both sides: he, chilled by your evident lack of appreciation and you by your sheer inability to smile once more, or to utter a syllable that will not seem utterly and abominably flat. It is a good plan to begin with a slight nod or elevation of the eyebrows, and, when some-roundings are more ruggedly picturesque, and others thing is said that really surprises you, you can take out your note-book and set it down. By husbanding your resources carefully you can easily spend a whole afternoon with a California farmer, and yet at the close of the day have a good stock of telling exclamations of astonishment left to end up with, thus winning a reputation for great intelligence, besides preserving yourself from that weariness which follows all extended exhibitions of joy. But, speaking seriously, these Southern plantations are truly wonderful to Northern eyes. The strange products, the broad almond - orchards, the English-walnut groves, the orange, fig, and lemon trees, all so clean and prosperous, together with all their strange conditions of growth, fill one with surprise, and provoke an almost endless curiosity. The poets have done some mischief to the people of temperate regions in persuading them to feel a sentimental reverence for citron - groves and the like, which is not to be entertained for similar groves of Roxbury russets; hence they are inclined to regard a Southern vineyard, for instance, or a Southern field of orange-shoots, with a peculiarly dainty respect, which is not at all warrantable. For all purposes of beauty, an orange-grove is utterly unprofitable. An orange-tree is a globe-like mass of dark but glistening verdure, supported by a smooth gray trunk eight or ten inches in diameter, the whole attaining a height rarely exceeding twenty-five feet. There are no projecting limbs, and there is no shape, no effect, as in most other plants, and one, after all, is forced to seek his satisfaction in counting up the money-profits, which undeniably are large. There is another pretty delusion, too, that visitors to these Southern towns are compelled to divest themselves of sooner or later. It is, that fruits native to the country are to be had on every hand for the asking. There is not a town of any considerable size in the North where one cannot purchase from among a larger assortment a better handful of delicacies than he can here. Oranges, lemons, figs, nuts, strawberries, and jellies, are all as high-priced | whose environs are a hundred times more cultivated than those of Santa Barbara, he recalls none whose outskirts are capable of pleasing so thoroughly. There are all the elements present to produce a great spectacle: a range of broken and almost inaccessible mountains; a half-circle of green-brown hills, dotted here and there with small plantations; a wide plain, with many a flashing square of ripening wheat and barley; a broad expanse of azure and sparkling sea; a lofty, tender-hued, cloud-like island a score of miles to the south; and, above all, a sky ineffably blue, deeper and more grateful than most other skies. The serenity of the picture has its complements in a breadth of expanse and in a weight of color among the mountains that prevent one from exclaiming, and arouse the deeper love for Nature as well as the lighter. The atmosphere softens all things, and there are so many heights that the transformations of the light and shade are perceptible constantly. All the sounds and moving sights suggest a profound silence and calm. The faint call of some child far below; the half-heard rattle of some mowing-machine in the distant grain-fields; the short, low clang of the old bells on the Catholic church in the town, suggest to you nothing but calm, and you say to yourself that it is very still. Even should you catch sight of something that moved-perhaps a little cloud of dust stirred by some vaquero galloping into town, or the half-discerned figure of a priest walking with downcast head in the ruined cemetery of the mission, or the white sail of some fruit-boat on the sound—you would only feel the quietude of all the rest the more. It is no wonder that the dwellers in the place learn soon to feel affection for it. It seems made for tired people. One standing in his garden, or sitting in the seclusion of his chamber, has but to raise his eyes to behold a poet's mountains or a poet's sea, and, if aught in Nature can tranquilize an anxious spirit, the power is surely here. Beyond the hills there is a wide valley, whose depth and breadth you would hardly dream of, for from the plain the mountains seem to rise close by. Your horse descends the sharp incline very easily, and you find yourself shortly in a shaded cañon, where there is a stream of water flowing over a bed of whitish rocks. The edges of the stream are lined with large sycamores, whose roots and branches both reach thirstily into the water; and the hills above are studded with live-oak, whose sturdy trunks seem to stand aloof disdainfully from such indulgence. Here and there, in the ride to the mouth of the ravine to the south, you will come upon the hut and demesne of some Spanish-Mexican, a low-browed, heavy-featured, black-haired fellow, who gets his bright-eyed wife to answer your questions, and flares up at his rotund children, by way of showing that he is strong at least in his own language, if not in the English. Nothing could very well increase the ugliness of the abodes of these people. Built of the sombre-colored adobe, thatched with reeds, windowless, doorless, smoky, and half-eaten by the attacks of the winter rain, the dwellings seem unfit to protect the toughest animals that ever existed. But, if on urgent need you put your head inside the door, you will find as large and as jolly a family as ever devoured a father's substance. A choking atmosphere, a horrible odor, a smouldering fire, a few gourds and cooking-utensils, a number of colored prints of the holy family and the saints, and a growling dog or two, are the ordinary properties that enter into the household, and the good-natured people never dream of anything different. The sheds and out-buildings, if there be any, are untidy to the last degree, and as for flower-beds and shrubs, or any sort of comforts, nothing could be more improbable. By way of contrast to the houses of these natives, one notices farther down the cañon the little cottage and inclosure of an American. It is truly the ideal working-man's dwelling. The land fenced in is not more than half an acre, perhaps not that. But all is neat, clean, and in the best of order. Sheds, barns, dove-cotes, hen-coops, garden-palings, and the pretty little house itself, are all whitened, and flowers and vines abound. It is probably the work of some new-comer, and a comparison between what he has done in a short time and what his neighbors have been a lifetime in accomplishing is a fair and significant commentary upon the better man. A moment since I mentioned, incidentally, the Mission. Ordinarily, it is spoken of immediately when the subject of Santa Barbara is broached, for it forms the most conspicuous object to the eye when the town first comes into view, and it excites greater curiosity than anything else in the place. But in writing, as in dining, one likes, now and then, to reserve a particularly fine morsel until the last. The Mission church is a huge white-stone building, standing in the rear of the town, upon an elevated portion of the plain, with its broad, turreted front turned to the southward, overlooking the sea. Its façade consists of two flanking towers of solid masonry, surmounted by open belfries, in which are hung, with strips of raw-hide, upon enormous beams, several begreened, harsh-toned bells. The great portal is in the centre of the broad curtain, and a rough-hewn figure of the Virgin and Child surmounts the apex of the roof. To the east runs a pillared balcony, where you see the priests in their gray gowns walking to and fro, conning their books; and above are a school for boys and a range of dormitories and chambers. In the rear is a neglected garden, though full of flowers yet, and on the other side of the church a burial-ground, where are numerous broken crosses standing leaning amid the choking weeds, and many sepulchres, cracked and chipped, with nodding grasses springing from out the crevices in their sides. All is surrounded by an adobe wall, broken and thrown down in some places, but lofty and firm in others. The interior of the building is rough, and the glories of the sanctuary are bedimmed with the dust and neglect of many years. The Mission is now wofully poor. All has changed since the acquirement of the territory by the United States, and the good Franciscans feel the full force of their vows. Merry-eyed Brother John, who, with a switch behind him, was explaining to a class of mild-looking Spanish lads the charms of short division, said, with a sigh: "It's thrue. We have now ter tile forr a livin' the same as thim other fellez!" and he nodded laughingly toward the laboring heretics in the town below. In a beautifully-written vellum-covered book, each of whose entries is piously prefaced thus: one reads of old Christopher Oramar and Antonio Paternia and José de Miguel, who in 1786 and thereabout were the Fathers of the Mission; also the faithful lists of the altar-ornaments, fruits, stock, births, and baptisms, of the different years as they came along. In the flood-tide of its prosperity there were no less than nineteen buildings erected close beneath the walls of the church for the accommodation of the neophytes; in 1796 three hundred and twenty-five people were baptized, showing how deep a hold the picturesque ritual had upon the hearts of the homely Indians; the property comprised, among other articles of real value, two thousand and odd head of cattle and eleven thousand head of sheep. To-day the sole income is derived from a boarding and day school, which the Brothers maintain on sound principles-pay in advance, and furnish yourselves—a melancholy decline, it is true; yet the tourist cannot help rejoicing, for the poverty of the house has compelled a thin veil of decay and abandonment to fall over everything, and to render the place a real jewel of a wreck. Ruins of aqueducts, fountains, and storehouses, cover the region for a quarter of a mile around, and not a square edge or new touch is to be found anywhere. At mass a few copper-colored women, dressed mostly in light muslins, find their way into the holy precincts, and, kneeling, cross themselves before the faded images, while the voice of the dismally-chanting priest loses itself in the dusty spaces far above. The ceremonies are threadbare, like the altar-cloths, and devotion goes afoot. Yet it is strangely pleasant to hear at nightfall on the plain below the tinny, querulous clangor of the mission bells, suggesting as they do something a little out of date, but wonderfully pathetic for all that. They bring to mind, too, the little group of priests that live in the old place-men of different nations, some old, some very young, but all intent upon objects beyond our sympathies; so far beyond, indeed, that it is good for the soul to wonder now and then which of us, a priest or ourself, has made the mistake, profoundly conscious that there must be a grand one somewhere. The writer, while speaking warmly of Santa Barbara, asserts distinctly that its climate is not perfect, or anything like it, and that upon reaching the town one has to exert as much skill in choosing a proper place for residence in it as he had to exercise originally in selecting it from among the hundred other health-resorts. The climate is as whimsically conducted (we will put it in that way for convenience' sake) as that of New England-that is, you can no more count upon a dry winter in the former place than you can upon a warm one in the latter. For example: the winter season of 1875-'76, beginning November 1st, was one of extraordinary severity, and the rainfall was twenty-two inches. To comprehend how much bad weather these figures stand for, please examine the following table: The rainfall for 1867-'68 was 25.19 inches; 1868 -'69, 1.577; 1869-'70, 10.27; 1870-'71, 8.91; 1871'72, 14.94; 1872-'73, 10.45; 1873-'74, 14.44; 1874'75, 18.71. A further proof of the uncertainty of the climate is the fact that the small rainfall of 1869-'70 included water that fell as early as October and as late as June, while the severe rainfall of 1867-'68 includes water that fell as early only as November and as late only as May. The table also shows that any winter may be twice as severe as the previous one, also that the ordinary variation is nearly one-third. At the same time, the rain rarely falls in Santa Barbara for twenty-four successive hours. One can go out-of-doors with comfort almost every day in the year, and without an overcoat. ber they average, perhaps, two each week. But they disperse at nine in the morning, and the succeeding weather is delightful. They rise above the earth at a very early hour, and one, upon seeing them, decides that the day is cloudy, so far up do they rest. In March and April the greatest changes occur, and the cold winds blow. But these winds are greatly tempered before they reach the plain, and are only cold in comparison with the ordinary temperature. No moderately healthy person need be annoyed by them in the least. As for extremes of temperature, perhaps the showing of two late years, taken at random, will be sufficient. In 1873 there were only thirteen days when the mercury rose above 83°; 86° was the highest, and 40° was the lowest. In 1875 the mercury rose above 83° only seven times; 88° was the highest, and 38° the lowest, this latter register being for seven o'clock on the morning of the 24th day of January. Still, while these very fairly show what may be expected in a general way, they do not touch the matter of rapid changes, the bane of invalids. That rapid changes do take place is undeniable; yet it would be next to impossible to make any fair deduction from the records of them, inasmuch as they occur at widely-varying intervals. They are by no means to be looked upon as a feature in the climate, as they are in the climate of the Eastern States; and one is hardly justified in speaking of them at all, so accidental are they. Still, it is well enough to remember that they are possible. In Santa Barbara each visitor must judge for himself. He may live comfortably in the lower part of the town, or he may find, after a few weeks, that he must remove farther in the direction of the Mission. Again, he may prefer the warmer air of the cañons-no one can lay down a law for him. Notwithstanding the fact that he has fled from a frigid winter to a semi-tropical one, he must yet use discretion to secure peace and comfort. Taken for all and all, Santa Barbara may be well regarded as a safe and delightful refuge. The difference between its ordinary winter and a winter of the fortieth parallel is the difference between black and white. Roses in December, and strawberries all the year, appeal to the Northern malcontent with a mighty force, and, if he but preserve here a small part of his old watchfulness over himself, he need There are fogs, too. Between May and Septem- never dread disappointment. GUID GUIDO DA POLENTA'S DAUGHTER. BY JUNIUS HENRI BROWNE. UIDO DA POLENTA'S daughter was Fran- | sorrows, and would be, though Alighieri's works had cesca da Rimini, whom everybody will recall as one of Dante's doomed spirits, because hardly any one reads the "Divina Commedia” in these days; and it is a peculiarity of our present human nature to remember what we have never heard of. Francesca, however, is known everywhere for her amatory been consigned to the limbo of irredeemable stupidity. He deserves, too, the credit of introducing her to the general public by that simple and exquisitely-condensed passage in the "Inferno," beginning "Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto Di Lanciotto." Never was a sad story of unhappy love more delicate- had been specially instructed not to mention Lanly told than in the single verse “Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante." Inasmuch as Polenta was his friend and protector, the taste, not to speak of the gratitude, of the poet may be questioned in thus rendering immortal a scandal which must have given great pain to the family. Had Dante held his peace, poor Francesca's indiscretion might, likely would, have been buried with her. But he was unaware of that. Her disloyalty, in consequence of her beauty, rank, and accomplishments, especially of the distressing tragedy that followed it, made a great noise throughout Central Italy. It was chronicled, and caused discussion for months. Dante merely wished to express sympathy with her and her lover, and to point a moral respecting osculatory literature in general, and the reading of it together by two young persons of different sex in particular. He did not consider to what an extent genius embalms everything it touches; he did not think, when he wrote the line "La bocca, mi baciò tutto tremante," what a burning coal he was casting into the hearts of susceptible women of unborn generations. Francesca's mere errors, as may be inferred, did not create such an ado. Uxorial slips were far too common in the middle ages, notably in Italy, to produce any commotion whatever. It was the terrible punishment with which they were visited that italicized the sin in the annals of the times. Men so openly and incessantly violated their matrimonial vows that it would have been strange, indeed, if they should not have shown a little leniency to their wives, when these sought to make reprisals. In the case of Francesca, her husband, Lanciotto, was quite as culpable as, if not more to blame than, herself in the lamentable affair. She lived in an adjacent city, Ravenna; but he had heard glowing accounts of Polenta's daughter from many sources. In truth, her loveliness of person and grace of mind were such as to fill several provinces. In an evil hour he decided to propose for her hand—a most unwise decision; for he was as fierce and ugly as she was gentle and handsome. He was of the Malatesta family, on the masculine side, for the most part a cruel, odious brood, whose history is stuffed with infamies. As fitting to his character, he was deformed, and on account of his deformity distrusted somewhat the issue of his suit with one he knew had had the shapeliest wooers in her train. Therefore he delegated to his brother, Paolo, a fair and noble youth, the management of the delicate mission, rightly believing that, where he might fail, his famed kinsman would almost certainly succeed. Paolo was an exception to the Malatesta men. He had the softer qualities that they had not, as well as their stouter virtues. His heart was tender, but his hand was firm; while his voice was eloquent, his soul was insensible to fear. He went to Rimini to plead in his brother's behalf, and so sweet was his entreaty that Francesca yielded to it speedily. He ciotto's deformity, and the instructions he implicitly obeyed. Why the flattered beauty should have consented to wed a man she had never seen does not appear. It might require explanation, had it not been the way of the sex from time immemorial to do things totally inexplicable to everybody, themselves included. Connubial contracts entered into by parties, without any knowledge of one another, may turn out as well, or as little ill, as those entered into after mutually intimate acquaintance. Nobody can tell how a marriage may result; for marriage defeats probabilities, and reconciles contradictions. probability is, that the Ravenna belle, complimented by a proposal from one who had become enamored of her through her fame, inclined to be as generous as the proposer. Then, too, he had the aid of the invisible, which is ever romantic and enkindling to the imagination; and, moreover, she might judge of him by the gallant messenger he had sent. "If Paolo be thus"-she may have reasoned-"what will not Lanciotto prove!" The There were immediate preparations for the nuptials-it was not the habit of the haughty Malatestas to wait-and Francesca, if we believe the chroniclers, beheld not her lord until an hour before the ceremony. Sorely disappointed she must have been; instinctively she must have shrunk from the anticipated caresses of a deformed, violent, selfish, tyrannical being, as her bridegroom showed himself at the first flush. "Alas, alas, how different from Paolo!" she could not but have thought, with bitterness enough, at that eventful moment. Perchance she wanted to withdraw; perchance she tried to. Small prospect was there of her gaining permission. In those days women did less as they wished, and more as they were bidden. The Polenta family doubtless deemed it a good match, and so it was practically, since Lanciotto was son of the Lord of Rimini-him whom Dante names the old mastiff of Verucchio-and the heir of his father's title and estates. The Malatestas were not a family to be offended; for they were unscrupulous as powerful, and the fierce mastiff would have torn the Polentas as he tore the unfortunate knight Montagna, had the marriage been, at the last hour, annulled. Really there was no safe method of escape for Francesca, who fancied, mayhap, that to be near Paolo would be some comfort. The twain were married. At least Lanciotto was, and his bride was sacrificed-a circumstance not unusual, even in these later days. The couple, of necessity, were not harmonious. The husband was sullen, harsh, brutal, from the beginning. Ere half the honeymoon was over, the young wife was oft espied in agony of tears. Her fair face grew wan and worn through what she suffered from the inferno of her lot. Paolo had loved her from the moment he had seen her; and she, although she knew it not, had loved him in instantaneous return. Under such conditions, they should have put the sea between them, all of Tuscany at least. But, as lovers invariably do, they placed be |