Diary kept by an unnamed Massachusetts man during his travels by train from Chicago to Los Angeles and his subsequent stay in California. The first half of the diary includes colorful descriptions of scenery and local people as the author traveled through St. Louis, Little Rock, New Orleans (which he called "the most foreign looking American city I know of and with the exception of Chicago, the most filthy"), El Paso, much of Arizona, and through the San Gorgonio Pass to the San Gabriel Valley. In this section the author also writes of racial segregation in the Southern states, his observance of stage actress Maud Granger and "her actor lover" on a train in Arizona, and his tour of the Arizona Territorial Prison. The second half of the diary covers his stay in California, where he had gone to see his mother and sister for the first time in 13 years. He writes of his impressions of Los Angeles as "a bright town...clean and new," of traveling up the coast to Santa Barbara, camping in Dos Pueblos Canyon, a trip to San Francisco, and his awe at seeing Mt. Shasta.
