nations, most of them engaged in trade, and a few quite respectable firms amongst them. The United States are officially represented by a consul. It is altogether but a dull and sleepy place in ordinary times. Not every day does even some coasting craft, schooner, or sloop enter the harbor, and very seldom any larger sized foreign vessels. Only by the arrival of the steamer the whole population is electrified into new life and bustle. The lazy employees, who pass most of their time in airing themselves in front of the “duoma" (custom house), consuming vast quantities of cigaritos, now take their hands out of their pockets and begin to sniff the air for a fat job. The boatmen paddle busily to and fro, between wharf and steamer. The cargadores (porters) stand ready to convey the freight on their heads and backs from the lighters to the custom house, and from there to different stores and warehouses. The main street is getting quite lively with officers belonging to the steamer and a number of transient passengers, who freely invest a few pesos in shells, corals, plants, fruit, cigars, and other small articles offered for sale.

From La Paz, the principal artery of travel into the interior is a road piercing the bush in a southerly direction. This was then, so far as I know, the only wagon-road in the country, and even this, though much frequented by travelers on mules and horseback, was but rarely used by any vehicle, excepting the teams of the Hormiguera mining company. To a distance of about ten miles, this road winds up the slope over a sandy soil, before entering between the first group of steep, rocky hills. Now it begins to be more cut up, going up and down over many grades of more or less length and steepness, but all the time gradually ascending. No settlement, not even a single house, was visible on or near this road, till, at a distance of about twenty miles from La Paz, we came to the Rancho de las Playitas, a low, insignificant looking building, with some rough fenc-. es alongside, located above the opening of a rocky cañon. Here the traveler can get a decent sqare meal, and if he wants to stop over

night, a cot with clean sheets, blankets, and pillow, in an extra room. Thus we found the establishment, some years ago. How it is kept now, quien sabe? Beyond this sta tion, the vestiges of human existence becam more frequent along the road, which contin ues between mountain ranges of considerab! elevation. At short distances from eac other, we passed by several huts and houses constructed of adobe, brick, or rough wood en posts and sticks, some of them occupie and surrounded by small plantations in very primitive state of culture; others vaca: and in ruins. Among the latter we notice the remains of an ancient reduction wor in which the ores of a mine, whereof we se the dump on the hillside, had been worke in former times.

About six miles from the Playitas we a rived at the Rancho "Las Calabazas," whe there is another chance to get refreshme for man and beast. Here and in sever other places near the road some fine pal trees present a pleasing variety amidst t monotony of the eternal bush. Again a f miles onward there comes the rancho Trischera; then the Pueblo del Triun otherwise Las Casitas. At first we came view of and then passed by a number mean looking shanties; then entered a str with more respectable looking buildings the right and left. These were mostly cupied by tiendas, amongst which, as most conspicuous, we notice the Tin raya or Company's store, where the wo men received their wages partly in ca partly in provisions and other goods. last, after crossing a dry arroyo, we halted the shade of the mill of the Hormiguere the principal building of the place, and ter of all the life and movement roundab

We found the works in full operation. battery of twenty-four stamps clattering fa a dense cloud of sulphurous fumes escap from a tall brick chimney, and spread over the whole flat on which this settlem was located; the steam-engine and "t complicated machinery connected with producing the habitual rumbling nee Long piles of cordwood stood ranged behi

The principal mines supplying the grist r this mill were less than half a mile disnt from the same. This company owned veral others besides these, in farther reote localities, but only this nearest group is regularly and syetematically explored. ost of the ores brought to daylight from It the shafts and tunnels of this mine were mpound sulphurets, containing besides e silver, which solely constituted their lue, various other metals, such as copper, n, lead, antimony, arsenic, zinc, in vary proportions. After being pulverized this has to be carefully roasted. A certain antity of salt must be added during the sting operation, for chloridizing the silver ore subjecting to the amalgamating pros. This salt was then obtained partly m Nentana Bay, about thirty miles dist from here on the Gulf, partly from Carn Island via La Paz, at the cost of $15 to i per ton.

By every steamer from thirty thousand to ́y thousand dollars' worth of bullion bars e shipped to San Francisco, often being jected to an export duty of four and a cents to the ounce, at the custom house a Paz. The average value of the worked ran about seventy dollars to the ton; best quality, or first class, one hundred fifty dollars and over. Such as coned less than twenty dollars a ton was idered worthless. Only as much workore was extracted as was required to the mill steadily employed-one hunand twenty tons a week. But this tity could have been easily doubled, multiplied ad infinitum, to meet an ined capacity of the reduction works. out twenty-five years ago this region 1 to attract the attention of some San cisco speculators, and several attempts made to open and work some of its

nevertheless, were managed and carried on in such a bungling and imbecile manner by incapable, and in some instances downright dishonest individuals, sent out by the San Francisco boards of trustees, that the stockholders soon became tired and disgusted, and dropped one affair after the other. Only a few of these mines continued to be worked in a small way by some stubborn single owners and companies, who, although convinced of the value and stability of their property, had but limited and insufficient means at their command. The only venture of some magnitude which held its own ground, having the good fortune to secure the timely and efficient aid of San Francisco capital, was the Triunfo or Hormiguera Mining Company; at the time of my visit the industrial enterprise of greatest and almost paramount importance on the whole peninsula.

There are several other spots of mining ground worth mentioning in other parts of this section of the peninsula. Among these the Ranchito range, about twenty miles north from here, whose ores, frequently containing horn, ruby, and wire silver, are generally richer than the sulphurets of the Triunfo and San Antonio districts, but not as abundant; another belt of valuable mines five miles beyond in the Cacachita mountains (among them the once famous "Tesoro").

Six miles eastward from Las Casitas the pueblo of San Antonio is situated, in a narrow valley which runs out into the broad plateau towards the gulf. Dreamy and pastoral in former times, it took a sudden start some years ago, when those mining enterprises before mentioned attracted a number of foreign adventurers into the immediate neighborhood. But since then it has fallen. back into its previous somnolency and torpor.

Many of its houses are vacant and crumbling into ruin, and the few remaining inhabitants are patiently waiting for a resurrection and new era of prosperity.

Nearly due west, and about thirty-five miles distant from us, the pueblo of Todos Santos flourishes near the shore of the Pacific ocean. The chief production is pano

California is beginning to feel herself something of Danaë under the continued downpour of wealth om the skies: the shower of gold-for by the double chemy of earth and trade, these gray streams will sily be forced to undergo their metamorphosis into e yellow solid-is getting to be a somewhat heavy eight upon the nervous and impatient; and, as the 15on of Eastern tourists set in some weeks ago, the nity likewise of the Californian exhibiting his sunland is somewhat bruised. The only bruises so far :eived from the golden shower, however, are these nute ones. The farmer-to whom we all turn to ow at what point we may cease to bring to bear nature the constraint of our puissant wish for more n, or even may venture to wish for a cessationfarmer, we say, sighs at the ever re-gathering uds and recommencing drip only as a man and as a farmer, checks himself in any half-begun mble, and reiterates that it is "every drop needA very different sort of Danaë rôle this from one California has been unconsciously playing thirty years past; a very different sort of weight which the continuous dripping lays on easily desed spirits from the weight with which our goldgains have all along tended to crush generous ration and work that had not a pecuniary measa very different sort of bruises these light dints on the vanity of the host as he explains to his ern guest the exceptional nature of the weather, the ponderous strokes that absorption in money ests has steadily dropped upon such vital memof our Danaë as learning and art, literature, and ght and love of the public good.

ril should by rights be high spring with us; by the land begins to ripen towards summer. This April has not so much yielded her prerogative elded it invisibly. Who indeed can tell whething is abroad in the land or not, when it is inably difficult to go abroad himself to see? Yet, cing the days that intervene between the showforays into stream-blockaded cañons and up ted hillsides, it is possible to discover her-in se waiting for sunshine, but going on with her in the warm, wet weather, with even unwonted ness and splendor, more than indifferent to the at all the spectators are kept at home by the Eighteen kinds of wild flowers and a dozen e of ferns and grasses-all growing, and growith prodigal abundance, on a few rods of -is a specimen of what is to be found. The lowers of April, too, include almost all the of the year, and a variety of color and form unto the winter or summer bloom. In January

or February, it is true, the flowering currant hangs its bushes full of pink strings along the streams and up shady hillsides; in June and July the gigantic stems of the red Turks-cap lilies and orange tiger-lilies, and the pale wild hyacinth haunt shady places in the redwood forests, and the greatest abundance of pink and yellow "sand verbenas," and of the large, pale variety of wild-rose covers the sea-shore ; and, later yet, the gorgeous purple, yellow, and red "mariposa [butterfly] lilies" hover among the drying grasses of the hill-sides. But in March, April, and May the smaller silver or shell-pink mariposa is abundant, fringing the shoulders of hills between the shaded side and the sunny crest; and where the soil is rich and the hillside only partly exposed to the sun, and lightly sprinkled with shrubbery, great colonies grow of the still rarer "silver bells "-looking like large specimens of the silver and pink mariposas, borne in tall clusters; the scarlet columbine, the white clematis, the scarlet and the yellow mimulus, all come in these months; so, too, the "star-flower" saxifrage-surely entitled to any such name as "rockbreaker" only on the "lucus a non lucendo" principle, since it is the most fragile flower of the whole yearly procession; the anemone-like, cream-colored poppy, that children call "cream-cup"; the earliest, and by far the finest variety of eschscholtzia; and, perhaps the most characteristic of all, darling of the Californian flora as completely as the mayflower of New England's, the sky-blue nemophila-the bluest flower, we think we are safe in saying, that grows, for most of the typically blue flowers have a purple shade. These are, on the whole, the finest of the wild flowers of the bay-region, and it will be seen that the majority of these belong to the present season. Farther north, the manzanita, which is earlier, and the azalea, somewhat later, would have to be added to the list; and, perhaps, others still.

The Modern Philistine.

Mr. Richard Grant White, analyzing the English Philistine, names him "a man steeped in commonplace." Mr. Arnold, talking of the Philistinism at large, stretches the definition to something like this: "On the side of beauty and taste, vulgarity; on the side of morality and feeling, coarseness; on the side of mind and spirit, unintelligence."

One can easily imagine how closely the American Philistine is allied to his British cousin, though each lives in scorn of the other; but for the matter of that, the Philistine is ubiquitous. I doubt not that there are Zulu Philistines and Fiji Philistines, to match those of "Lunnun town" and New York. The man

with a soul-and if the missionaries are to be believed, even a savage has a soul-with a soul, I say, a step above his neighbors even in the method of serving up that neighbor in a fricassee, might easily escape the stigma of Philistinism. But this is frivolous logic and unworthy our subject. Letting the savage go, and holding fast to the Philistine of civilization, one may boldly assert that it is only the figure standing out from the mass who is not a Philistine.

How many people do we know personally, with the mind and spirit, the beauty and taste, the morality and feeling, to balance Mr. Arnold's mental seesaw? Enough to count on the fingers of both hands? Ah, no, my friends; they are rare as black swans. The little clusters of congenial spirits found here and there that answer the requirements, are scarcely enough to leaven the big lump of Philistinism. We talk in a hopeful, nay, even in a boastful way of our culture; but how many know even what culture means? A sham culture, a sham enthusiasm for "the good, the beautiful, and the true," a sham sentiment and a sham benevolence these are the banners which the Philistines hang out to hide their bare

walls.

The false prophets who beg us to wait for another generation, to show what it can do in the arts and sciences, and how fairly it can honor these things, do not appreciate the fact that generation upon generation will not wipe out the Philistine. Him we have always with us.

The British Philistine, prosperous in his middle class, we can picture as he came to the mind's eye of both the authors quoted; but the American Philstine we know. We have stretched our legs under his hand-carved tables, we have eaten his all-too-sumptuous dinners, we have had the headache from his bad wines, we have conversed in awe (and melancholy) with his over-dressed wives and daughters, we have gazed on the rare pictures, the well-filled book-cases, the irreproachable upholstery, the curios which were held up as evidences of mind and spirit, of beauty and taste. But Philistinism is printed on them all in Long Primer type, and can not be rubbed out with ingots, or bank checks, or foreign tours. For the book-cases are locked, the pictures appraised by their owner only at their monetary value (including the frames), the Souvenirs de Europe" have

left their histories at home-the whole establishment is but "property." Yet nobody, I fancy, would undertake to convince these good people that they have not the best life can give them.

There are, of course, grades and shades of Philistinism, but the frank apostle of the commonplace, who scoffs at the higher forms of culture, is less distressing than he who tangles himself in its meshes. Nothing is more pitiful than to see the Philistine hugging the belief that he can buy culture, or "mind and spirit," and it immediately suggests the threadbare story of the man who offered to buy his child a capacity." The same false prophets who peer

into the future for an aesthetic Utopia, congratulate themselves on the tide of refinement and luxury that is already creeping over our young land; bat it is only a tidal wave which will recede as quickly as it came, leaving its gaudy flotsam strung far and wide, even on the ragged edges of civilization. Our very æstheticism is only a species of Philistinism, in stead of being the infant which is to strangle that monster. There is a false ring about the voices of these enthusiasts, and while they pretend to climb to higher air and sing songs out of tune, and smatter themselves with "ologies," and talk in Ruskinese, they are still living in Philistia, and her stamp is on the spurious coin they offer to the world.

The Philistine of all degrees prides himself on his respectability. He shakes his head at Bohemia, an gathers up his garments lest they be defiled by the dwellers therein. His religion is usually vicarious. He rents a pew in the most popular church, and sends his family to ask for "mercy on us miserable sinners"; but when he does go into the field of Christian workers, it is with ostentatious zeal. He may be just, but he is never generous. When he gives, it is grudgingly, and to satisfy the demands o his station rather than his conscience; just as he holds up his artistic treasures not to give pleasure to others but to gratify his ignoble pride of possession. The sons of the men who give stupid dinners, and over load their houses with bric-a-brac, and live extrava gantly yet meanly, whose pleasures are vapid, an whose ambitions are unprofitable, will gather a extra layer of veneer, maybe, but the cheap wood w still underlie their studied grace and delicacy. 1 would be foolish to aver that out of the Philistic husk there may not burst sometimes a genius of chivalric spirit, by the interfusion of finer blood, bu the chances are against such a phenomenon. Fo the Philistine is apt to be conservative, and finds hi

own level in wedlock as in other things.

average

Philistine de

to conte

But I must quarrel with Mr. Arnold in a piece his definition: "On the side of morality and feel ing, coarseness." Now, the not lack morality, but he makes it so ungracious tha we turn from it in dismay, forgetting that his with edness would be correspondingly tiresome, and the aesthetic morality, while it is pleasanter plate, is always valuable as the more substantia. narrower stuff. The Philistine is of the earth eart but we would not grudge him his due in the matte of morals. Nor does he lack feeling. Acute sens bility he has not, but his bumps of goodwill and ve eration are apt to be as big as the poet's "ber the purple"; in fact, he cultivates the home virt laboriously, and to the exclusion of others.

He knows but one world, and that a world of facts See, then, how vain it is to expect him to follow thoughts of the romancists, of whom Fancy is Nature means to him so much acreage, such a b ing site, such a proportion of crops or timber, th elements, with their daily marvellous phenomeza