The descent presented even more picturesque scenes than the climb. The grade was steeper and the distance less; and the road followed the mountain sides, which sloped away in places hundreds of feet to wooded canyons now dim with mysterious shadows. Majestic redwoods, oaks, birches, pines, sycamores, with here and there the red gleam of the madrona, pressed up to the very roadside and their fragrance loaded the air. At the foot of the grade, some nine miles from the summit, we glided into the well-kept streets of Los Gatos, the "City of the Foothills," one of the cleanest and most sightly towns that the wayfarer will come across, even in California. It has few pretentious homes, but the average cottage or bungalow is so happily situated and surrounded by green lawns dotted with flower beds and palms, that the effect is more pleasing than rows of costly houses could be. In the public buildings such as the library and schools, the Spanish mission type is followed with generally fortunate results. In the foothills near by are several villas of San Francisco people which are steadily increasing in number, for Los Gatos is only an hour by train from the metropolis and has hopes of becoming a residence town of wealthy San Franciscans.
Out of Los Gatos we pursued a level, well-improved road to San Jose, running through the great prune and cherry orchards for which the Santa Clara Valley is famous and which gave promise of a bounteous yield. A little after sunset we came into the city of San Jose, closing an unusually strenuous run over steep and dusty mountain roads. We found the new Montgomery Hotel a comfortable haven and its modern bathrooms an unspeakable boon. Our first move was to segregate ourselves from the California real estate which we had accumulated during the day and to don fresh raiment, after which we did full justice to a late dinner, despite very slack service and not altogether unexceptionable cuisine—excusable, perhaps, by the lateness of the hour.
San Jose is a modern city of forty or fifty thousand people, the commercial capital of the Santa Clara Valley. There is not much within the town itself to detain one on such a pilgrimage as our own. The mission first occurred to us and we learned that it was at Mission San Jose, twelve miles from the city to which it gives its name; our next inquiry was concerning the Lick Observatory, which they told us might be reached by a twenty-five mile jog up the slopes of Mount Hamilton, overlooking the town from the east. It was clear that we should have to take a day for these excursions and early the next morning we were off for the Mount Hamilton climb.