morning, noon
At San Pedro , the port for Los Angeles -LRB- Puebla de los Angeles , the `` Town of the Angels '' -RRB- , we landed , and after a few days ' camping by some lagoons near the sea , where we shot more duck than could easily be disposed of , we made our way to that little old Spanish settlement , where we hired a horse and buggy to take us inland . Our first stopping-place was at a sheep-ranche , about fifty miles from Los Angeles , a very beautiful property , well grassed and watered , and consisting chiefly of great plains through which flowed a crystal-clear river , and surrounded on very side by the most picturesque of hills , 1,000 to 1,500 feet in height . The ranche was owned by a Scotsman , and his `` weather-board '' house was new and comfortable , but we found ourselves at the mercy of the most conservative of Chinese cooks , whom no blandishments could induce to give us at our meals any of the duck or snipe we shot , but who stuck with unwearying persistency to boiled pork and beans . And on boiled pork and beans he rang the changes , morning , noon , and night ; that is to say , sometimes it was hot , and sometimes it was cold , but it was ever boiled pork and beans . At its best it is not a diet to dream about -LRB- though I found that a good deal of dreaming could be done _ upon _ it -RRB- , and as we fancied , after a few days , that any attraction which it might originally have possessed had quite faded and died , we resolved to push on elsewhere . The following night we reached a little place at the foot of the higher mountains called Temescal , a very diminutive place , consisting , indeed , of but one small house . The surroundings , however , were very beautiful , and the presence of a hot sulphur-spring , bubbling up in the scrub not one hundred yards from the house , and making a most inviting natural bath , coupled with the favourable reports of game of all kinds to be got , induced us to stop .