RAMONA'S HOME:
A VISIT TO THE CAMULOS RANCH, AND TO
SCENES DESCRIBED BY "H. H."
BY
EDWARDS ROBERTS.
From the San Francisco CHRONICLE.
Camulos Ranch (Santa Clara Valley),
Ventura County, Cal., April 27, 1886.
In travelling from Tucson to the Santa Clara valley a marked change is experienced. Here in California there is not even a suggestion of the barren wastes that are so apt to oppress one in Arizona. From Newhall, where just now all the talk is in regard to the proposed new railroad, to Camulos, the Santa Clara valley is a garden. By the roadside is field after field of grain. It is strange there was never before this a railroad built into such a fruitful region. If I were an Easterner, and had never seen California, and should see it as I do now, robed in its bright spring dress, sweet to smell, beautiful to look upon, as warm and pleasant as June is in New England, I should ever after be a devoted admirer of the State, and could always be ready to believe and indorse all the pleasant things said in regard to it. Hut it is not as a stranger that I return to California, nor do I seek this overland route simply because of its picturesqueness. What I sought is this which I have found,—the Camulos ranch, the home of Ramona, whom "H H." created, and described as living with the Señora Moreno in this house from which I write to-night. Yes, here lived the heroine of the novel which many call the American novel, long watched for and now come at last. Here, before the cool, shaded veranda on which I sit is the court-yard; here Felipe's room, and there Ramona's, and there the Señora's. I can see the kitchen, from which to the dining-room there was always a procession of children carrying smoking-hot dishes to the Señora's table. Where I am fitting old Juan Can used to lounge, with his legs stretched out before him, and his dog at his feet. Near by is the south veranda, the
