California’s interior valley heat and dust struck travelers as repulsive despite its wealth

Evidence

Very uninviting, however rich, was the blazing Sacramento Valley, and very repulsive the city of Sacramento, which, at a distance of 125 miles from the Pacific, has an elevation of only thirty feet. The mercury stood at 103° in the shade, and the fine white dust was stifling. In the late afternoon we began the ascent of the Sierras, whose sawlike points had been in sight for many miles. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 22

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the interior-vs-coast discomfort that recurs in many 19th-century western travel accounts; connects to settler descriptions in A Midwife’s Tale-era New England contrasts.