FRAGMENT IN DOCUMENT 100 OF THE MCCULLAGH LETTERS

The German (Mr. Israel) [1] got a mote in his eye.  He saw me before take one out of Willie's [2] eye so he came to me & pointing to his eye said "have a see".  I did but could see nothing so I said to him "Blow your nose".  He took some tobacco off the end of a cigar rubbed it fine in his fingers & snuffed it up vigorously which set him sneezing  I laughed. He said "What you call dat".  I said sneeze. He said "I call that blow"  He was a very funny fellow & gave us great fun during the journey with his broken English & comments on everything.  We had meals several places along the road "not bad eat, but very big monies" as the German said.  Milk 10c a glass (about 5d of our money) 20c for a cup of tea & a bad sandwich (about 10d of our money)  We could get any amount of fruit in the cars oranges bananas peaches etc. etc. 2½ days & nights going thro' the desert, dear but we were tired of it.  The heat was great.  90  in the shade & dust suffocating.  We got oranges to buy in the train I think I never ate so many in my life before they are dearer than they were in the old country but better.  There were bananas.  I ate some but don't care for them much they are too luscious, peaches which are lovely, cherries, apricots  This is a land of fruit & flowers.  I wish you could see Los Angeles  It is the very nicest city I have ever been in, all flowers & fruit Roses every where.  We  arrived in Los Angeles 4 o'c Sunday evg.  Went to look up a Mr. Todd [3] to whom Willie had got a letter of introduction but did not find him in.  Then went to see Mr. & Mrs. Nicoll [4] (Miss Ritchie's [5] sister & brother-in-law) of course she did not know us, never expecting to see us there but when we told her who we were she was very very kind and hospitable  She made us stay all night. We went to evg. service at their church & heard a Mr. Crabb [6] preach & were afterwards introduced to him his wife & daughters all very pleasant & agreeable. Mr. Nicoll brought us through the lumber works on Monday mory, they are very interesting sawing, planing, everything in the carpentering line done like lightning by machinery.  We left Los Angeles on the 2 o'c train & had a hard drive to be in time for it.  The station was about 4 miles from Mr. Nicols and this distance we went in about 20 minutes in a "Surrey" drawn by a pair of grand horses, they could almost fly.  They have cable cars, electric cars,& horse cars all through the city.  The electric cars are driven by electric wires over head