In  due  course  we  arrived  in  the  thriving  town  of
Santa  Maria,  finding  it  dressed  in  patriotic  bunting
in  readiness  for  Independence  Day,  close  at  hand.
I  put  up  for  a  day,  and  found  the  place  very  attrac-
tive the  model  of  a  progressive  Western  town;  neat,
bright,  and  well-ordered:  a  whole  continent  apart
in  character  from  its  aeighbor,  the  mangy  and  ill-
favored  Guadalupe.
Leaving  here  at  noon  of  the  next  day  I  took  a
northward  road,  crossing  the  Santa  Maria  River,
or,  more  exactly,  its  bed.    It  showed  a  quarter-mile


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i4o        CALIFORNIA  COAST  TRAILS'

of  Sahara-like  sand,  without  vestige  of  water,  though
four  months  before  the  river  had  been  running
amuck,  bank  full  and  yellow  as  ancient  Nilus.  Here
I  entered  the  county  of  San  Luis  Obispo.  It  opened
hopefully,  with  a  rougher  look,  and  I  felt  by  many
tokens  that  I  was  no  longer  in  southern  California.
The  cross-range  of  the  Tehachapi  is  the  physical
bar  which  gives  effect  to  the  conventional  division  of
the  State.  It  is  the  region  south  of  the  Tehachapi
that  constitutes  southern  California,  and  that  was
now  finally  behind  me.
