Sunset, the Magazine that Pictures the West and stimulates interest in all things beyond the Rockies, here points the way of tourist travelers to a most attractive and instructive feature in Far Western sight-seeing—the Wondrous Rail Highway Along the Pacific, joining California and Oregon, skirting spectacular Shasta, and over the sightly Siskiyous to the fast-flowing Columbia, through thousands of acres of roses and sweet peas, oranges and walnuts, wheat and hops, apples and apricots, with new things to see at every turn, and every comfort all the way. And don’t forget that you’ll find a continuation of this story, and will find other stories and pictures that will prove as interesting, in Sunset Magazine every month, in every year.

And now—

A thousand wonders? The man who gave that as a result of his count evidently dodged his task. If he’d counted all the things that set one wondering—things God-made and hand-made, things of sky and sea, of cañon and mountain, and field and forest—along this thirteen hundred miles of highway he would never have stopped at a mere thousand. Ten thousand would have been something like it, but modesty is a decent and not over-worked virtue, and ought to be cheered wherever seen. Let it go at a thousand and see if the glory of these wonders may be impressed upon you. The climate is first, of course. You cannot overlook the novel joy of a region where on New Year’s day, they battle with roses instead of snowballs. In the country around Los Angeles they do that sort of thing as a fixed festival, but the same floral ammunition, and the blue sky and soft air are the winter characteristics of a hundred other places along this road that joins Los Angeles to Portland, passing through San Francisco—this Coast Line and Shasta Route.

THE BUSTLING CITY OF LOS ANGELES CROWDS CLOSELY THE OLD MISSION CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS

IN THE HEART OF LOS ANGELES WEST LAKE PARK IS AN ATTRACTIVE RESTING PLACE

FAN PALMS AND SEMI-TROPIC TREES FRINGE THE WALKS BEFORE LOS ANGELES HOMES

SQUABS BY THE MILLION, WAITING TO GO INTO PIE—A SIGHT NEAR LOS ANGELES

Away down in the southwest corner of this great nation of ours, behind mountain barriers, is the sun-kissed region that draws each year to it an army of tourists and seekers for that priceless joy that’s valued most when it’s lost health. It’s the great Land of Out-of-Doors here, with sunny skies and a climate that invigorates all the year around, all the way across the mesas and tablelands of the Painted desert region, across New Mexico and Arizona, across sandy wastes and cactus-spread plains into the Californian oasis country, where water and wisdom have helped make a paradise for all who believe that Nature is the best of doctors. It’s a sunshine orgy all the way. And Los Angeles, with its palms and olives, its crumbling adobes, side by side with thirteen-story fire-proof steel business blocks, electric railway cars whizzing everywhere—what a marvel of the Past, jostled by Progress! Here are hotels of all sorts and sizes, and homes that are marvels of luxury and elegance. Here you can study climatology and sociology, with variations; can view the simple life through the eyes of the man whose only home is a covered wagon; or, you can get a permit to enter the iron gateway of the park of some retired millionaire. Los Angeles, however, with all its charms, is only one small corner of Out-of-Door Land. The holy fathers of Mexico and old Spain found that out over a hundred years ago, when they started from Loreto, in Paja California, to make their mission pilgrimage up the Alta California coast. From San Diego and Los Angeles they headed northerly, establishing their mission stations a day’s journey apart. In sheltered valleys, on slopes that look far to seaward, by never-failing water courses, they planted the cross and marked out the boundaries of their holdings. No wide roadways could be thought of, but connecting these stations there soon was marked a broad trail—El Camino Real—the Highway of the King. Perhaps—who knows?—this name was given to do double honor—to the King of Kings, whose cross the padres bore, and to that monarch of Castile, whose bidding they were doing in aiding to carry his dominion into the newer world. Up the coast this old-time highway ran and to-day the steel highway of The Road of a Thousand Wonders follows it closely at many points, joining the missions of Los Angeles, San Gabriel, San Fernando, San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, La Purisima, Santa Ynez, San Luis Obispo, San Miguel, San Antonio, Soledad, Carmel, San Juan, Santa Cruz, and others, just as musically named. The railway touches or runs close to all of these. At all these spots these wise men of the long ago found attractive sites, all under health-giving sun, and bathed by pure air, with a benign climate the year around. At Sonoma, a little north of San Francisco, the King’s Highway ended, but adventurous spirits pushed on northerly, up the headwaters of the Sacramento, and over the mountains into the Oregon wilderness, meeting before then trails of trappers and couriers du bois of the old Hudson’s Bay Company. And, over this trail of the trappers, runs the steel highway of to-day, bearing the traveler in comfort amid historic scenes. All of