The year 1877 will long be remembered as
exceptionally rainless and distressing. Scarcely a flower bloomed on the
dry valleys away from the stream-sides, and not a single grain-field
depending upon rain was reaped. The seed only sprouted, came up a little
way, and withered. Horses, cattle, and sheep grew thinner day by day,
nibbling at bushes and weeds, along the shallowing edges of streams,
many of which were dried up altogether, for the first time since the
settlement of the country.
[Illustration: A BEE-RANCH ON A SPUR OF THE SAN GABRIEL RANGE. CARDINAL
FLOWER.]
In the course of a trip I made during the summer of that year through
Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles
counties, the deplorable effects of the drought were everywhere
visible--leafless fields, dead and dying cattle, dead bees, and
half-dead people with dusty, doleful faces. Even the birds and squirrels
were in distress, though their suffering was less painfully apparent
than that of the poor cattle. These were falling one by one in slow,
sure starvation along the banks of the hot, sluggish streams, while
thousands of buzzards correspondingly fat were sailing above them, or
standing gorged on the ground beneath the trees, waiting with easy faith
for fresh carcasses.
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