[Illustration: Life at the Mission of Dolores, 1855]

 IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE PADRES

 BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD

 NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION

 INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES PHILLIPS

 SAN FRANCISCO A. M. Robertson MCMXII

 TO MY FATHER SAMUEL BURR STODDARD, ESQ. FOR HALF A CENTURY A CITIZEN OF SAN FRANCISCO

 THOUGH THE KINDNESS OF THE EDITORS OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, THE CENTURY MAGAZINE, THE OVERLAND MONTHLY, THE AVE MARIA, NOTRE DAME, INDIANA, THE VICTORIAN REVIEW, MELBOURNE

INTRODUCTION

Since the first and second editions of "In the Footprints of the Padres"appeared, many things have transpired. San Francisco has been destroyedand rebuilt, and in its holocaust most of the old landmarks mentioned inthe pages that follow as then existing, have been obliterated. Sincethen, too, the gentle heart, much of whose story is told herein, hasbeen hushed in death. Charles Warren Stoddard has followed on in thefootprints of the Padres he loved so well. He abides with us no longer, save in the sweetest of memories, memories which are kept ever new bythe unforgettable writings which he left behind him. He passed awayApril 23, 1909, and lies sleeping now under the cypresses of his belovedMonterey. 

Charles Warren Stoddard was possessed of unique literary gifts that wereall his own. These gifts shine out in the pages of this book. Here wefind that mustang humor of his forever kicking its silver heels with themost upsetting suddenness into the honeyed sweetness of his flowingpoetry. Here, too, we find that gift of word-painting which makes allhis writings a brilliant gallery of rich-hued and soft-lighted wonder. Of the green thickets of the redwood forests he says, in "PrimevalCalifornia": "A dense undergrowth of light green foliage caught and heldthe sunlight like so much spray. " So do Stoddard's pages catch and holdthe lights and shadows of a world which is the more beautiful because hebeheld it and sang of it--for sing he did. His prose is the essence ofpoetry. 

In my autograph copy of "The Footprints of the Padres" Stoddard wrote:"A new memory of Old Monterey is the richer for our meeting here for thefirst time in the flesh. We have often met in spirit ere this. " Wheneverwe would go walking together, he and I, through the streets of that oldMonterey, old no longer save in memory, he would invariably take me to acertain high board fence, and looking through an opening show me theruins of an adobe house--nothing but a broken fireplace left, moss-grownand crumbling away. "That is my old California, " he would say, while hissweet voice was shaken with tears. That desolated hearth seemed to himthe symbol of the California which he had known and loved. . . . But no, the old California that Stoddard loved lives on, and will, because hecaught and preserved its spirit and its coloring, its light and life andmusic. As the redwood thicket holds the sunlight, so do Stoddard's wordskeep bright and living, though viewed through a mist of tears, theCalifornia of other days. 

In this new edition of "The Footprints" some changes will be found, changes which all will agree make an improvement over the originalvolume. "Primeval California, " first published in October, 1881, in theold Scribner's (now The Century) Magazine, when James G. Holland was itseditor, is at times Stoddard at his best. "In Yosemite Shadows" shows usthe young Stoddard full of boyish enthusiasm--he could not have beenmore than twenty when it was written and published, in the old Overland, then edited by Bret Harte. It is more than a gloriously poeticdescription of Yosemite, when Yosemite still dreamed in its virginbeauty; it is the revelation of a poet's beginnings, for it gives us inthe rough, just finding their way to the light, all those gifts whichlater won Stoddard his fame. 

The third addition to this volume is "An Affair of the Misty City, " avaluable chapter, since it is wholly autobiographical, and at the sametime embodies pen portraits of all the celebrities of California's firstliterary days, that famous group of which Stoddard was one. Of all thegroup, Ina Coolbrith was closest and dearest to Stoddard's heart. Thebeautiful abiding friendship which bound the souls of these two poetstogether has not been surpassed in all the poetry and romance of theworld. These last added chapters are taken from "In the Pleasure of HisCompany, " which is out of print and may never be republished. 

The "Mysterious History, " included in the original editions of "TheFootprints" has wisely been left out. It had no proper place in thebook: Stoddard himself felt that. The additions which have been suppliedby Mr. Robertson, who was for years Stoddard's publisher, and in whomthe author reposed the utmost confidence, make a real improvement on theoriginal book. 

"We have often met in spirit ere this, " Stoddard wrote me. We had; andwe meet again and again. I feel him very near me as I write these words;and I feel, too, that his gentle soul will visit everyone who reads thechronicles he has here set down, so that even though no shaft rise inmarble glory to mark his last resting place, still in unnumbered heartshis memory will be enshrined. With his poet friend, Thomas Walsh, wellmay we say:

 "Vain the laudation!--What are crowns and praise To thee whom Youth anointed on the eyes? We have but known the lesser heart of thee Whose spirit bloomed in lilies down the ways Of Padua; whose voice perpetual sighs On Molokai in tides of melody. "

CHARLES PHILLIPS. 

 San Francisco, September first, Nineteen hundred and eleven. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Old Days in El Dorado-- I. "Strange Countries for to See" II. Crossing the Isthmus III. Along the Pacific Shore IV. In the Wake of Drake V. Atop o' Telegraph Hill VI. Pavement Pictures VII. A Boy's Outing VIII. The Mission Dolores IX. Social San Francisco X. Happy Valley XI. The Vigilance Committee XII. The Survivor's Story

 A Bit of Old China

 With the Egg-Pickers of the Farallones

 A Memory of Monterey

 In a Californian Bungalow

 Primeval California

 Inland Yachting

 In Yosemite Shadows

 An Affair of the Misty City-- I. What the Moon Shone on II. What the Sun Shone on III. Balm of Hurt Wounds IV. By the World Forgot

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 Life at the Mission of Dolores, 1855 View of Montgomery, Post and Market Streets, San Francisco, 1858 Fort Point at the Golden Gate The Outer Signal Station at the Golden Gate City of Oakland in 1856 Interior of the El Dorado Warner's at Meigg's Wharf The Old Flume at Black Point, 1856 Lone Mountain, 1856 Russ Gardens, 1856 Certificate of Membership, Vigilance Committee, 1856 West from Black Point, 1856 "China is Not More Chinese than this Section of Our Christian City. " "Rag Alley" in Old Chinatown The Farallones Murre on their Nests, Farallone Islands Monterey, 1850 San Carlos de Carmelo "The Huge Court of that Luxurious Caravansary. " "The Gallery Among the Huge Vases of Palms and Creepers. " Meigg's Wharf in 1856 Telegraph Hill, 1855 Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite, in 1869 San Francisco in 1856

THE BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL

 Thine was the corn and the wine, The blood of the grape that nourished; The blossom and fruit of the vine That was heralded far away. These were thy gifts; and thine, When the vine and the fig-tree flourished, The promise of peace and of glad increase Forever and ever and aye. What then wert thou, and what art now? Answer me, O, I pray!

 And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel! Rang Gabriel! In the tower that is left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 

 Oil of the olive was thine; Flood of the wine-press flowing; Blood o' the Christ was the wine-- Blood o' the Lamb that was slain. Thy gifts were fat o' the kine Forever coming and going Far over the hills, the thousand hills-- Their lowing a soft refrain. What then wert thou, and what art now? Answer me, once again!

 And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel! Rang Gabriel! In the tower that is left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 

 Seed o' the corn was thine-- Body of Him thus broken And mingled with blood o' the vine-- The bread and the wine of life; Out of the good sunshine They were given to thee as a token-- The body of Him, and the blood of Him, When the gifts of God were rife. What then wert thou, and what art now, After the weary strife?

 And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel! Rang Gabriel! In the tower that is left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 

 Where are they now, O, bells? Where are the fruits o' the mission? Garnered, where no one dwells, Shepherd and flock are fled. O'er the Lord's vineyard swells The tide that with fell perdition Sounded their doom and fashioned their tomb And buried them with the dead. What then wert thou, and what art now?-- The answer is still unsaid. 

 And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel! Rang Gabriel! In the tower that is left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 

 Where are they now, O tower! The locusts and wild honey? Where is the sacred dower That the bride of Christ was given? Gone to the wielders of power, The misers and minters of money; Gone for the greed that is their creed-- And these in the land have thriven. What then wer't thou, and what art now, And wherefore hast thou striven?

 And every note of every bell Sang Gabriel! Rang Gabriel! In the tower that is left the tale to tell Of Gabriel, the Archangel. 

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. 

IN THE FOOTPRINTS OF THE PADRES

[Illustration: View of Montgomery, Post and Market Streets, SanFrancisco, 1858]

OLD DAYS IN EL DORADO

I. 

"STRANGE COUNTRIES FOR TO SEE"

Now, the very first book was called "Infancy"; and, having finished it, I closed it with a bang! I was just twelve. 'Tis thus thetwelve-year-old is apt to close most books. Within those pages--perhapssome day to be opened to the kindly inquiring eye--lie the records of aquiet life, stirred at intervals by spasms of infantile intensity. Thereare more days than one in a life that can be written of, and when theclock strikes twelve the day is but half over. 

The clock struck twelve! We children had been watching and waiting forit. The house had been stripped bare; many cases of goods were awaitingshipment around Cape Horn to California. California! A land of fable! Weknew well enough that our father was there, and had been for two yearsor more; and that we were at last to go to him, and dwell there with thefabulous in a new home more or less fabulous, --yet we felt that it mustbe altogether lovely. We said good-bye to everybody, --getting friendsand fellow-citizens more or less mixed as the hour of departure from ournative city drew near. We were very much hugged and very much kissed andnot a little cried over; and then at last, in a half, dazed condition, we left Rochester, New York, for New York city, on our way to SanFrancisco by the Nicaragua route. This was away back in 1855, when SanFrancisco, it may be said, was only six years old. 

It seemed a supreme condescension on the part of our maternalgrandfather that he, who did not and could not for a moment countenancethe theatre, should voluntarily take us, one and all, to see an allegeddramatic representation at Barnum's Museum--at that time one of thefeatures of New York city, and perhaps the most famous place ofamusement in the land. Four years later, when I was sixteen, very farfrom home and under that good gentleman's watchful supervision, I askedleave to witness a dramatic version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " enacted by asmall company of strolling players in a canvas tent. There were noblood-hounds in the cast, and mighty little scenery, or anything elsealluring; but I was led to believe that I had been trembling upon theverge of something direful, and I was not allowed to go. What would thatpious man have said could he have seen me, a few years later, struttingand fretting my hour upon the stage?

Well, we all saw "Damon and Pythias" in Barnum's "Lecture Room, " withreal scenery that split up the middle and slid apart over a carpet ofgreen baize. And 'twas a real play, played by real players, --at leastthey were once real players, but that was long before. It may be theirantiquated and failing art rendered them harmless. And, then, thosebeguiling words "Lecture Room" have such a soothing sound! They seemedin those days to hallow the whole function, which was, of course, thewily wish of the great moral entertainer; and his great moralentertainment was even as "the cups that cheer but not inebriate. " Itcame near it in our case, however. It was our first matinee at thetheatre, and, oh, the joy we took of it! Years afterward did we childrenin our playroom, clad in "the trailing garments of the night" in lieu oftogas, sink our identity for the moment and out-rant Damon and hisPythias. Thrice happy days so long ago in California!

There is no change like a sea change, no matter who suffers it; andone's first sea voyage is a revelation. The mystery of it is usually notunmixed with misery. Five and forty years ago it was a very seriousundertaking to uproot one's self, say good-bye to all that was nearestand dearest, and go down beyond the horizon in an ill-smelling, overcrowded, side-wheeled tub. Not a soul on the dock that day but fullyrealized this. The dock and the deck ran rivers of tears, it seemed tome; and when, after the lingering agony of farewells had reached theclimax, and the shore-lines were cast off, and the Star of the Westswung out into the stream, with great side-wheels fitfully revolving, ashriek rent the air and froze my young blood. Some mother parting from ason who was on board our vessel, no longer able to restrain her emotion, was borne away, frantically raving in the delirium of grief. I havenever forgotten that agonizing scene, or the despairing wail that wasenough to pierce the hardest heart. I imagined my heart was about tobreak; and when we put out to sea in a damp and dreary drizzle, and theshore-line dissolved away, while on board there was overcrowding, andconfusion worse confounded in evidence everywhere, --perhaps it didbreak, that overwrought heart of mine and has been a patched thing eversince. 

We were a miserable lot that night, pitched to and fro and rolled fromside to side as if we were so much baggage. And there was a specialhorror in the darkness, as well as in the wind that hissed through therigging, and in the waves that rushed past us, sheeted with foam thatfaded ghostlike as we watched it, --faded ghostlike, leaving theblackness of darkness to enfold us and swallow us up. 

Day after day for a dozen days we ploughed that restless sea. There weredays into which the sun shone not; when everybody and everything wassticky with salty distillations; when half the passengers were sea-sickand the other half sick of the sea. The decks were slimy, the cabinsstuffy and foul. The hours hung heavily, and the horizon line closed inabout us a gray wall of mist. 

Then I used to bury myself in my books and try to forget the world, nowlost to sight, and, as I sometimes feared, never to be found again. Ihad brought my private library with me; it was complete in two volumes. There was "Rollo Crossing the Atlantic, " by dear old Jacob Abbot; andthis book of juvenile travel and adventure I read on the spot, as itwere, --read it carefully, critically; flattering myself that I was a ladof experience, capable of detecting any nautical error which Jacob, oneof the most prolific authors of his day, might perchance have made. Theother volume was a pocket copy of "Robinson Crusoe, " upon the fly-leafof which was scrawled, in an untutored hand, "Charley fromFreddy, "--this Freddy was my juvenile chum. I still have that littletreasure, with its inscription undimmed by time. 

Frequently I have thought that the reading of this charming book mayhave been the predominating influence in the development of my taste andtemper; for it was while I was absorbed in the exquisitely patheticstory of Robinson Crusoe that the first island I ever saw dawned upon myenchanted vision. We had weathered Cape Sable and the Florida Keys. Nosky was ever more marvellously blue than the sea beneath us. The densityand the darkness that prevail in Northern waters had gone out of it; thesun gilded it, the moon silvered it, and the great stars dropped theirpearl-plummets into it in the vain search for soundings. 

Sea gardens were there, --floating gardens adrift in the tropic gale;pale green gardens of berry and leaf and long meandering vine, rockingupon the waves that lapped the shores of the Antilles, feeding thecurrent of the warm Gulf Stream; and, forsooth, some of them to findtheir way at last into the mazes of that mysterious, mighty, menacingsargasso sea. Strange sea-monsters, more beautiful than monstrous, sported in the foam about our prow, and at intervals dashed it withcolor like animated rainbows. From wave to wave the flying fish skimmedlike winged arrows of silver. Sometimes a land-bird was blown across thesky--the sea-birds we had always with us, --and ever the air was spicyand the breeze like a breath of balm. 

One day a little cloud dawned upon our horizon. It was at first paleand pearly, then pink like the hollow of a sea-shell, then mistyblue, --a darker blue, a deep blue dissolving into green, and the greenoutlining itself in emerald, with many a shade of lighter or darkergreen fretting its surface, throwing cliff and crest into high relief, and hinting at misty and mysterious vales, as fair as fathomless. Itfloated up like a cloud from the nether world, and was at first withoutform and void, even as its fellows were; but as we drew nearer--for wewere steaming toward it across a sea of sapphire, --it brooded upon theface of the water, while the clouds that had hung about it werescattered and wafted away. 

Thus was an island born to us of sea and sky, --an island whose peak wassky-kissed, whose vales were overshadowed by festoons of vapor, whoseheights were tipped with sunshine, and along whose shore the sea sangsoftly, and the creaming breakers wreathed themselves, flashed likesnow-drifts, vanished and flashed again. The sea danced and sparkled;the air quivered with vibrant light. Along the border of that island thepalm-trees towered and reeled, and all its gardens breathed perfume suchas I had never known or dreamed of. 

For a few hours only we basked in its beauty, rejoiced in it, gloried init; and then we passed it by. Even as it had risen from the sea itreturned into its bosom and was seen no more. Twilight stole in betweenus, and the night blotted it out forever. Forever?

I wonder what island it was? A pearl of the Antilles, surely; but itsname and fame, its history and mystery are lost to me. Its memory livesand is as green as ever. No wintry blasts visit it; even the rich dyesof autumn do not discolor it. It is perennial in its rare beauty, unfading, unforgotten, unforgettable; a thing immutable, immemorial--Ihad almost said immortal. 

Whence it came and whither it has gone I know not. It had its rising andits setting; its day from dawn to dusk was perfect. Doubtless there arethose whose lives have been passed within its tranquil shade: fromgeneration to generation it has known all that they have known of joy orsorrow. All the world that they have knowledge of has been compassed bythe far blue rim of the horizon. That sky-piercing peak was ever thecentre of their universe, and the wandering sea-bird has outflown theirthoughts. 

All this came to me as a child, when the first island "swam into myken. " It was a great discovery--a revelation. Of it were born all theislands that have been so much to me in later life. And even then Iseemed to comprehend the singular life that all islanders are forced tolive: the independence of that life--for a man's island is his fortress, girded about with the fathomless moat of the sea; and the dependence ofit--for what is that island but an atom dotting watery space and soeasily cut off from communication with the world at large? Drought mayvisit the islander, and he may be starved; the tornado may desolate hisshore; fever and famine and thirst may lie in wait for him; sickness andsorrow and death abide with him. Thus is he dependent in hisindependence. 

And he is insecluded in his seclusion, for he can not escape from theintruder. He should have no wish that may not be satisfied, provided hebe native born; what can he wish for that is beyond the knowledge he hasgained from the objects within his reach? The world is his, so far as heknows it; yet if he have one wish that calls for aught beyond hislimited horizon he rests unsatisfied. 

All that was lovely in that tropic isle appealed to me and filled mewith a great longing. I wanted to sing with the Beloved Bard:

 Oh, had we some bright little isle of our own, In the blue summer ocean, far off and alone!

And yet even then I felt its unutterable loneliness, as I have felt it athousand times since; the loneliness that starves the heart, torturesthe brain, and leaves the mind diseased; the loneliness that isexemplified in the solitude of Alexander Selkirk. 

Robinson Crusoe lived in very truth for me the moment I saw andcomprehended that summer isle. He also is immortal. From that hour wescoured the sea for islands: from dawn to dark we were on the watch. TheCaribbean Sea is well stocked with them. We were threading our way amongthem, and might any day hear the glad cry of "Land ho!" But we heard itnot until the morning of the eleventh day out from New York. The seaseemed more lonesome than ever when we lost our, island; the monotony ofour life was almost unbroken. We began to feel as prisoners must feelwhose _time_ is near out. Oh, how the hours lagged!--but deliverance wasat hand. At last we gave a glad shout, for the land was ours again; wewere to disembark in the course of a few hours, and all was bustle andconfusion until we dropped anchor off the Mosquito Shore. 

II. 

CROSSING THE ISTHMUS

We approached the Mosquito Shore timidly. The shallowing sea was of thecolor of amber; the land so low and level that the foliage which coveredit seemed to be rooted in the water. We dropped anchor in the mouth ofthe San Juan River. On our right lay the little Spanish village of SanJuan del Norte; its five hundred inhabitants may have been wadingthrough its one street at that moment, for aught we know; the placeseemed to be knee-deep in water. On our left was a long strip ofland--the depot and coaling station of the Vanderbilt Steamship Company. 

It did not appear to be much, that sandspit known as Punta Arenas, withits row of sheds at the water's edge, and its scattering shrubs tossingin the wind; but sovereignty over this very point was claimed by threepetty powers: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and "Mosquito. " Great Britainbacked the "Mosquito" claim; and, in virtue of certain privilegesgranted by the "Mosquito" King, the authorities of San Juan delNorte--the port better known in those days as Graytown, albeit 'twas asgreen as grass--threatened to seize Punta Arenas for public use. Thereupon Graytown was bombarded; but immediately rose, Phoenix-like, from its ashes, and was flourishing when we arrived. The current numberof _Harper's Monthly_, a copy of which we brought on board when weembarked at New York, contained an illustrated account of thebombardment of Graytown, which added not a little to the interest of thehour. 

While we were speculating as to the nature of our next experience, suddenly a stern-wheel, flat-bottom boat backed up alongside of the Starof the West. She was of the pattern of the small freight-boats thatstill ply the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. If the Star of the West wassmall, this stern-wheel scow was infinitely smaller. There was but onecabin, and it was rendered insufferably hot by the boilers that were setin the middle of it. There was one flush deck, with an awning stretchedabove it that extended nearly to the prow of the boat. It was said ourpassenger list numbered fourteen hundred. The gold boom in Californiawas still at fever heat. Every craft that set sail for the Isthmus bythe Nicaragua or Panama route, or by the weary route around Cape Horn, was packed full of gold-seekers. It was the Golden Age of the Argonauts;and, if my memory serves me well, there were no reserved seats worth theprice thereof. 

The first river boat at our disposal was for the exclusive accommodationof the cabin passengers, or as many of them as could be crowded uponher--and we were among them. Other steamers were to follow as soon aspracticable. Hours, even days, passed by, and the passengers on theocean steamers were sometimes kept waiting the arrival of the riverboats that were aground or had been belated up the stream. 

About two hundred of us boarded the first boat. Our luggage of thelarger sort was stowed away in barges and towed after us. The decks werestrewn with hand-bags, camp-stools, bundles, and rolls of rugs. Thelower deck was two feet above the water. As we looked back upon the Starof the West, waving a glad farewell to the ship that had brought us morethan two thousand miles across the sea, she loomed like a Noah's Arkabove the flood, and we were quite proud of her--but not sorry to saygood-bye. 

And now away, into the very heart of a Central American forest! And hailto the new life that lay all before us in El Dorado! The river was asyellow as saffron; its shores were hidden in a dense growth ofunderbrush that trailed its boughs in the water, and rose, a wall ofverdure, far above our smokestacks. As we ascended the stream the forestdeepened; the trees grew taller and taller; wide-spreading brancheshung over us; gigantic vines clambered everywhere and made huge hammocksof themselves; they bridged the bayous, and made dark leafy cavernswherein the shadows were forbidding; for the sunshine seemed never tohave penetrated them, and they were the haunts of weirdness and mysteryprofound. 

Sometimes a tree that had fallen into the water and lay at a convenientangle by the shore afforded the alligator a comfortable couch for hissun-bath. Shall I ever forget the excitement occasioned by the discoveryof our first alligator! Not the ancient and honorable crocodile of theNile was ever greeted with greater enthusiasm; yet our sportsmen hadvery little respect for him, and his sleep was disturbed by a shower ofbullets that spattered upon his hoary scales as harmlessly as rain. 

Though the alligator punctuated every adventurous hour of that memorablevoyage in Nicaragua, we children were more interested in our Darwinianfriends, the monkeys. They were of all shades and shapes and sizes; theydescended in troops among the trees by the river side; they called to usand beckoned us shoreward; they cried to us, they laughed at us; theyreached out their bony arms, and stretched wide their slim, cold handsto us, as if they would pluck us as we passed. We exchanged complimentsand clubs in a sham-battle that was immensely diverting; we returnedthe missiles they threw at us as long as the ammunition held out, butcaptured none of the enemy, nor did the slightest damage--as far as wecould ascertain. 

Often the parrots squalled at us, but their vocabulary was limited; forthey were untaught of men. Sometimes the magnificent macaw flew over us, with its scarlet plumage flickering like flame. Oh, but those gorgeousbirds were splashes of splendid color in the intense green of thattropical background!

There were islands in this river, --islands that seemed to have noshores, but lay half submerged in mid-stream, like huge water-loggedbouquets. There were sand-bars in the river, and upon these we sometimesran, and were brought to a sudden stand-still that startled us not alittle; then we backed off with what dignity we might, and gave theunwelcome obstructions a wide berth. 

Perhaps the most interesting event of the voyage was "wooding up. " A fewhours after we had entered the river our steamer made for the shore. More than once in her course she had rounded points that seemed to blockthe way; and occasionally there were bends so abrupt that we foundourselves apparently land-locked in the depths of a wilderness whichmight well be called prodigious. Now it was evident that we were headingfor the shore, and with a purpose, too. As we drew nearer, we saw amongthe deep tangle of leaves and vines a primitive landing. It was a littledock with a thatched lodge in the rear of it and a few cords of woodstacked upon its end. There were some natives here--Indiansprobably, --with dark skins bared from head to foot; they wore only thebreech-clout, and this of the briefest. Evidently they were children ofNature. 

Having made fast to this dock, these woodmen speedily shouldered thefuel and hurried it on board, while they chanted a rhythmical chant thatlent a charm to the scene. We were never weary of "wooding up, " and werealways wondering where these gentle savages lived and how they escapedwith their lives from the thousand and one pests that haunted the forestand lay in wait for them. Every biting and stinging thing was there. Themosquitoes nearly devoured us, especially at night; while serpents, scorpions, centipedes, possessed the jungle. There also was the lair oflarger game. It is said that sharks will pick a white man out of a crowdof dark ones in the sea; not that he is a more tempting and toothsomemorsel--drenched with nicotine, he may indeed be less appetizing thanhis dark-skinned, fruit-fed fellow, --but his silvery skin is a goodsea-mark, as the shark has often confirmed. So these dark ones in thesemi-darkness of the wood may, perhaps, pass with impunity where apale-face would fall an easy prey. 

At the Rapids of Machuca we debarked. Here was a miry portage about amile in length, through which we waded right merrily; for it seemed anage since last we had set foot to earth. Our freight was pulled up theRapids in _bongas_ (row-boats), manned by natives; but our steamer couldnot pass, and so returned to the Star of the West for another load ofpassengers. 

There was mire at Machuca, and steaming heat; but the path along theriver-bank was shaded by wondrous trees, and we were overwhelmed withthe offer of all the edible luxuries of the season at the most alarmingprices. There was no coin in circulation smaller than a dime. Everythingsalable was worth a dime, or two or three, to the seller. It didn't seemto make much difference what price was asked by the merchant: he got it, or you went without refreshments. It was evident there was no marketbetween meals at Machuca Rapids, and steamer traffic enlivened it buttwice in the month. 

What oranges were there!--such as one seldom sees outside the tropics:great globes of delicious dew shut in a pulpy crust half an inch inthickness, of a pale green tinge, and oozing syrup and an oily spraywhen they are broken. Bananas, mangoes, guavas, sugar-cane, --on these wefed; and drank the cream of the young cocoanut, goat's milk, and thejuices of various luscious fruits served in carven gourds, --delectableindeed, but the nature of which was past our speculation. It was enoughto eat and to drink and to wallow a muddy mile for the very joy of it, after having been toeing the mark on a ship's deck for a dozen days orless, and feeding on ship's fodder. 

Our second transport was scarcely an improvement on the first. Again wethreaded the river, which seemed to grow broader and deeper as we drewnear its fountain-head, Lake Nicaragua. Upon a height above the riverstood a military post, El Castillo, much fallen to decay. Here wereother rapids, and here we were transferred to a lake boat on which wewere to conclude our voyage. Those stern-wheel scows could never weatherthe lake waters. 

We had passed a night on the river boat, --a night of picturesquehorrors. The cabin was impossible: nobody braved its heat. The deck waslittered with luggage and crowded with recumbent forms. A few fortunatevoyagers--men of wisdom and experience--were provided with comfortablehammocks; and while most of us were squirming beneath them, they swungin mid-air, under a breadth of mosquito netting, slumbering sonorouslyand obviously oblivious of all our woes. 

If I forget not, I cared not to sleep. We were very soon to leave theriver and enter the lake. From the boughs of overarching trees sweptbeards of dark gray moss some yards in length, that waved to and fro inthe gathering twilight like folds of funereal crape. There werecamp-fires at the wooding stations, the flames of which painted thefoliage extraordinary colors and spangled it with sparks. Great flocksof unfamiliar birds flew over us, their brilliant plumage taking adeeper dye as they flashed their wings in the firelight. The chatteringmonkeys skirmished among the branches; sometimes a dull splash in thewater reminded us that the alligator was still our neighbor; and everthere was the piping of wild birds whose notes we had never heardbefore, and whose outlines were as fantastic as those of the brightobjects that glorify an antique Japanese screen. 

Once from the shore, a canoe shot out of the shadow and approached us. It was a log hollowed out--only the shell remained. Within it sat twoIndians, --not the dark creatures we had grown familiar with down theriver; these also were nearly nude, but with the picturesque nudenessthat served only to set off the ornaments with which they had adornedthemselves--necklaces of shells, wristlets and armlets of bright metal, wreaths of gorgeous flowers and the gaudy plumage of the flamingo. Theydrew near us for a moment, only to greet us and turn away; and verysoon, with splash of dipping paddles, they vanished in the dusk. 

These were the flowers of the forest. All the winding way from the seathe river walls had been decked with floral splendor. Gigantic blossomsthat might shame a rainbow starred the green spaces of the wood; but ofall we had seen or heard or felt or dreamed of, none has left animpression so vivid, so inspiring, so instinct with the beauty and thepoetry and the music of the tropics, as those twilight mysteries thatsmiled upon us for a moment and vanished, even as the great fire-fliesthat paled like golden rockets in the dark. 

III. 

ALONG THE PACIFIC SHORE

All night we tossed on the bosom of the lake between San Carlos, at thesource of the San Juan river, and Virgin Bay, on the opposite shore. Thelake is on a table-land a hundred feet or more above the sea; it is ahundred miles in length and forty-five in width. Our track laydiagonally across it, a stretch of eighty miles; and when the morningbroke upon us we were upon the point of dropping anchor under the coolshadow of cloud-capped mountains and in a most refreshing temperature. 

Oh, the purple light of dawn that flooded the Bay of the Blessed Virgin!Of course the night was a horror, and it was our second in transit; butwe were nearing the end of the journey across the Isthmus and wereshortly to embark for San Francisco. I fear we children regretted thefact. Our life for three days had been like a veritable "Jungle Book. "It almost out-Kiplinged Kipling. We might never again float throughMonkey Land, with clouds of parrots hovering over us and a wholemenagerie of extraordinary creatures making side-shows of themselves onevery hand. 

At Virgin Bay we were crowded like sheep into lighters, that werespeedily overladen. Very serious accidents have happened in consequence. A year before our journey an overcrowded barge was swamped at Virgin Bayand four and twenty passengers were drowned. The "Transit Company, "supposed to be responsible for the life and safety of each one of us, seemed to trouble itself very little concerning our fate. The truth wasthey had been paid in full before we boarded the Star of the West atPier No. 2, North River. 

Having landed in safety, in spite of the negligence of the "TransitCompany, " our next move was to secure some means of transportation overthe mountain and down to San Juan del Sur. We were each provided with aticket calling for a seat in the saddle or on a bench in a springlesswagon. Naturally, the women and children were relegated to the wagons, and were there huddled together like so much live stock destined for themarket. The men scrambled and even fought for the diminutive donkeysthat were to bear them over the mountain pass. A circus knows no comedylike ours on that occasion. It is true we had but twelve miles totraverse, and some of these were level; but by and by the road dippedand climbed and swerved and plunged into the depths, only to soar againalong the giddy verge of some precipice that overhung a fathomlessabyss. That is how it seemed to us as we clung to the hard benches ofour wagon with its four-mule attachment. 

Once a wagon just ahead of us, having refused to answer to its brakes, went rushing down a fearful grade and was hurled into a tangle ofunderbrush, --which is doubtless what saved the lives of its occupants, for they landed as lightly as if on feather-beds. From that hour ourhearts were in our throats. Even the thatched lodges of the natives, swarming with bare brown babies, and often having tame monkeys andparrots in the doorways, could not beguile us; nor all the fruits, werethey never so tempting; nor the flowers, though they were past belieffor size and shape and color and perfume. 

Over the shining heights the wind scudded, behatting many a head thatwent bare thereafter. Out of the gorges ascended the voice of thewaters, dashing noisily but invisibly on their joyous way to the sea. From one of those heights, looking westward over groves of bread-fruittrees and fixed fountains of feathery bamboo, over palms that toweredlike plumes in space and made silhouettes against the sky, we saw along, level line of blue--as blue and bluer than the sky itself, --and weknew it was the Pacific! We were little fellows in those days, wechildren; yet I fancy that we felt not unlike Balboa when we knelt uponthat peak in Darien and thanked God that he had the glory of discoveringa new and unnamed ocean. 

Why, I wonder, did Keats, in his famous sonnet "On First Looking intoChapman's Homer, " make his historical mistake when he sang--

 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout _Cortez_ when with eagle eyes, He stared at the Pacific, --and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

It mattered not to us whether our name was Cortez or Balboa. With anyother name we would have been just as jolly; for we were looking for thefirst time upon a sea that was to us as good as undiscovered, and wewere shortly to brave it in a vessel bound for the Golden Gate. At ourtime of life that smacked a little of circumnavigation. 

San Juan del Sur! It was scarcely to be called a village, --a merehandful of huts scattered upon the shore of a small bay and almostsurrounded by mountains. It had no street, unless the sea sands itfronted upon could be called such. It had no church, no school, nopublic buildings. Its hotels were barns where the gold-seekers were fedwithout ceremony on beans and hardtack. Fruits were plentiful, and thatwas fortunate. 

There, as in every settlement in Central America, the eaves of thedwellings were lined with Turkey buzzards. These huge birds are regardedwith something akin to veneration. They are never molested; indeed, likethe pariah dogs of the Orient, they have the right of way; and they areevidently conscious of the fact, for they are tamer than barnyard fowls. They are the scavengers of the tropics. They sit upon the housetop andamong the branches of the trees, awaiting the hour when the refuse ofthe domestic meal is thrown into the street. There is no drainage inthose villages; strange to say, even in the larger cities there is none. Offal of every description is cast forth into the highways and byways;and at that moment, with one accord, down sweep the grim sentinels todevour it. They feast upon carrion and every form of filth. They arepolution personified, and yet they are the salvation of the indolentpeople, who would, but for the timely service of these ravenous birds, soon be wallowing in fetid refuse and putrefaction under the fierce raysof their merciless sun. 

In the twilight we wandered by a crescent shore that was thickly strewnwith shells. They were not the tribute of northern waters: they were asdelicately fashioned and as variously tinted as flowers. All that theylacked was fragrance; and this we realized as we stored them carefullyaway, resolving that they should become the nucleus of a museum ofnatural history as soon as we got settled in our California home. 

We had crossed the Isthmus in safety. Yonder, in the offing, the shipthat was to carry us northward to San Francisco lay at anchor. For threedays we had suffered the joys of travel and adventure. On the San Juanriver we had again and again touched points along the varying routesproposed, by the Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua and the WalkerCommission, as being practical for the construction of a great shipcanal that shall join the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. We had passedfrom sea to sea, a distance of about two hundred miles. 

The San Juan river, one hundred and twenty miles in length, has a fallof one foot to the mile. This will necessitate the introduction of atleast six massive locks between the Atlantic and the lake. Sometimes theriver can be utilized, but not without dredging; for it is shallow frombeginning to end, and near its mouth is ribbed with sand-bars. Forseventy miles the lake is navigable for vessels of the heaviest draught. Beyond the lake there must be a clean-cut over or through the mountainsto the Pacific, and here six locks are reckoned sufficient. Cross-cutsfrom one bend in the river to another can be constructed at the rate oftwo hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or less, per mile. The canalmust be sunk or raised at intervals; there will, therefore, at variouspoints be the need of a wall of great strength and durability, from onehundred and thirty to three hundred feet in height or depth. 

The annual rain-fall in the river region between Lake Nicaragua and theCaribbean Sea is twenty feet; annual evaporation, three feet. Thesepoints must be considered in the construction and feeding of the canal, even though it is to vary in width. The dimensions of the proposedcanal, as recommended by the Walker Government Commission, are asfollows: total length, one hundred and eighty-nine miles; minimum depthof water at all stages, thirty feet; width, one hundred feet inrock-cuts, elsewhere varying from one hundred and fifty to three hundredfeet--except in Lake Nicaragua, where one end of the channel will bemade six hundred feet wide. 

Nearly fifty years ago, when a canal was projected, the Childs surveyset the cost at thirty-seven million dollars. Now the commissionersdiffer on the question of total cost, the several estimates ranging fromone hundred and eighteen million to one hundred and thirty-five milliondollars. The United States Congress at its last session authorized theexpenditure of one million by a new commission "to investigate themerits of all suggested locations and develop a project for an IsthmusCanal. "

And so we left the land of the lizard. What wonders they are! From aninch to two feet in length, slim, slippery, and of many and changefulcolors, they literally inhabit the land, and are as much at home in ahouse as out of it; indeed, the houses are never free of them. Theysailed up the river with us, and crossed the lake in our company, andsat by the mountain wayside awaiting our arrival; for they are curiousand sociable little beasts. As for the San Juan river, 'tis like theOcklawaha of Florida many times multiplied, and with all its originalattractions in a state of perfect preservation. 

All the way up the coast we literally hugged the shore; only during thehours when we were crossing the yawning mouth of the Gulf of Californiawere we for a single moment out of sight of land. I know not if this wasa saving in time and distance, and therefore a saving in fuel andprovender; or if our ship, the John L. Stevens, was thought to beoverloaded and unsafe, and was kept within easy reach of shore for fearof accident. We steamed for two weeks between a landscape and a seascapethat afforded constant diversion. At night we sometimes saw flame-tippedvolcanoes; there was ever the undulating outline of the Sierra NevadaMountains through Central America, Mexico, and California. 

Just once did we pause on the way. One evening our ship turned in itscourse and made directly for the land. It seemed that we must be dashedupon the headlands we were approaching, but as we drew nearer theyparted, and we entered the land-locked harbor of Acapulco, the chiefMexican port on the Pacific. It was an amphitheatre dotted withtwinkling lights. Our ship was speedily surrounded by small boats of alldescriptions, wherein sat merchants noisily calling upon us to purchasetheir wares. They had abundant fruits, shells, corals, curios. Theyflashed them in the light of their torches; they baited us to bargainwith them. It was a Venetian _fete_ with a vengeance; for the hawkerswere sometimes more impertinent than polite. It was a feast of lanterns, and not without the accompaniment of guitars and castanets, and rich, soft voices. 

After that we were eager for the end of it all. There was SantaCatalina, off the California coast, then an uninhabited island givenover to sunshine and wild goats, now one of the most popular andpopulous of California summer and winter resorts--for 'tis all the sameon the Pacific coast; one season is damper than the other, that is theonly difference. The coast grew bare and bleak; the wind freshened andwe were glad to put on our wraps. And then at last, after a journey ofnearly five thousand miles, we slowed up in a fog so dense it drippedfrom the scuppers of the ship; we heard the boom of the surf poundingupon the invisible shore, and the hoarse bark of a chorus of sea-lions, and were told we were at the threshold of the Golden Gate, and shouldenter it as soon as the fog lifted and made room for us. 

[Illustration: Fort Point at the Golden Gate]

IV. 

IN THE WAKE OF DRAKE

We were buried alive in fathomless depths of fog. We were a fixtureuntil that fog lifted. It was an impenetrable barrier. Upon the point ofentering one of the most wonderful harbors in the world, the glory ofthe newest of new lands, we found ourselves prisoners, and for a time atleast involved in the mazes of ancient history. 

In 1535 Cortez coasted both sides of the Gulf of California--firstcalled the Sea of Cortez; or the Vermilion Sea, perhaps from itsresemblance to the Red Sea between Arabia and Egypt; or possibly fromthe discoloration of its waters near the mouth of the Rio Colorado, orRed River. 

In 1577 Captain Drake, even then distinguished as a navigator, fittedout a buccaneering expedition against the Spaniards; it was a wild-goosechase and led him round the globe. In those days the wealth of thePhilippines was shipped annually in a galleon from Manila to Acapulco, Mexico, on its way to Europe. Drake hoped to intercept one of theserichly laden galleons, and he therefore threaded the Straits ofMagellan, and, sailing northward, found himself, in 1579, within sightof the coast of California. All along the Pacific shore from Patagoniato California he was busily occupied in capturing and plundering Spanishsettlements and Spanish ships. Wishing to turn home with his treasure, and fearing he might be waylaid by his enemies if he were again tothread the Straits of Magellan, he thought to reach England by the Capeof Good Hope. This was in the autumn of 1579. To quote the language ofan old chronicler of the voyage:

"He was obliged to sail toward the north; in which course havingcontinued six hundred leagues, and being got into forty-three degreesnorth latitude, they found it intolerably cold; upon which they steeredsouthward till they got into thirty-eight degrees north latitude, wherethey discovered a country which, from its white cliffs, they called NovaAlbion, though it is now known by the name of California. 

"They here discovered a bay, which entering with a favorable gale, theyfound several huts by the waterside, well defended from the severity ofthe weather. Going on shore, they found a fire in the middle of eachhouse, and the people lying around it upon rushes. The men go quitenaked, but the women have a deerskin over their shoulders, and roundtheir waist a covering of bulrushes after the manner of hemp. 

"These people bringing the Admiral [Captain Drake] a present of feathersand cauls of network, he entertained them so kindly and generously thatthey were extremely pleased; and afterward they sent him a present offeathers and bags of tobacco. A number of them coming to deliver it, gathered themselves together at the top of a small hill, from thehighest point of which one of them harangued the Admiral, whose tent wasplaced at the bottom. When the speech was ended they laid down theirarms and came down, offering their presents; at the same time returningwhat the Admiral had given them. The women remaining on the hill, tearing their hair and making dreadful howlings, the Admiral supposedthey were engaged in making sacrifices, and thereupon ordered divineservice to be performed at his tent, at which these people attended withastonishment. 

"The arrival of the English in California being soon known through thecountry, two persons in the character of ambassadors came to the Admiraland informed him, in the best manner they were able, that the king wouldvisit him, if he might be assured of coming in safety. Being satisfiedon this point, a numerous company soon appeared, in front of which was avery comely person bearing a kind of sceptre, on which hung two crowns, and three chains of great length. The chains were of bones, and thecrowns of network, curiously wrought with feathers of many colors. 

"Next to sceptre-bearer came the king, a handsome, majestic person, surrounded by a number of tall men dressed in skins, who were followedby the common people, who, to make the grander appearance, had paintedtheir faces of various colors; and all of them, even the children, beingloaded with presents. 

"The men being drawn up in line of battle, the Admiral stood ready toreceive the king within the fences of his tent. The company halted at adistance, and the sceptre-bearer made a speech half an hour long; at theend of which he began singing and dancing, in which he was followed bythe king and all the people; who, continuing to sing and dance, camequite up to the tent; when, sitting down, the king took off his crown offeathers, placed it on the Admiral's head, and put on him the otherensigns of royalty; and it is said he made him a solemn tender of hiswhole kingdom; all which the Admiral accepted in the name of the Queenhis sovereign, in hope that these proceedings might, one time or other, contribute to the advantage of England. 

"The people, dispersing themselves among the Admiral's tents, professedthe utmost admiration and esteem for the English, whom they looked uponas more than mortal; and accordingly prepared to offer sacrifices tothem, which the English rejected with abhorrence; directing them, byvarious signs, that their religious worship was alone due to the supremeMaker and Preserver of all things. . . . 

"The Admiral, at his departure, set up a pillar with a large plate onit, on which were engraved her Majesty's name, picture, arms, and titleto the country; together with the Admiral's name and the time of hisarrival there. "

Pinkerton says in his description of Drake's voyage: "The land is sorich in gold and silver that upon the slightest turning it up with aspade these rich materials plainly appear mixed with the mould. " It isnot strange, if this were the case, that the natives--who, thoughapparently gentle and well disposed, were barbarians--should naturallyhave possessed the taste so characteristic of a barbarous people, andhave loved to decorate themselves even lavishly with ornaments rudelyfashioned in this rare metal. Yet they seemed to know little of itsvalue, and to care less for it than for fuss and feathers. Either theywere a singularly stupid race, simpler even than the child of ordinaryintelligence, or they scorned the allurements of a metal that so few areable to resist. 

Drake was not the first navigator to touch upon those shores. Theexplorer Juan Cabrillo, in 1542-43, visited the coast of UpperCalifornia. A number of landings were made at different points along thecoast and on the islands near Santa Barbara. Cabrillo died during theexpedition; but his successor, Ferralo, continued the voyage as farnorth as latitude 42°. Probably Drake had no knowledge of the discoveryof California by the Spaniards six and thirty years before he droppedanchor in the bay that now bears his name, and for many years he waslooked upon as the first discoverer of the Golden State. Even to thisday there are those who give him all the credit. Queen Elizabethknighted him for his services in this and his previous expeditions;telling him, as his chronicler records, "that his actions did him morehonor than his title. " Her Majesty seems not to have been much impressedby his tales of the riches of the New World--if, indeed, they ever cameto the royal ear, --for she made no effort to develop the resources ofher territory. No adventurous argonauts set sail for the Pacific coastin search of gold till two hundred and seventy years later. 

There seems to have been a spell cast over the land and the sea. We aresure that Sir Francis Drake did not enter the Bay of San Francisco, andthat he had no knowledge of its existence, though he was almost withinsight of it. In one of the records of his voyage we read of the chillyair and of the dense fogs that prevailed in that region; of the "whitebanks and cliffs which lie toward the sea"; and of islands which areknown as the Farallones, and which lie about thirty miles off the coastand opposite the Golden Gate. 

In 1587 Captain Thomas Cavendish, afterward knighted by Queen Elizabeth, touched upon Cape St. Lucas, at the extremity of Lower California. Hewas a privateer lying in wait for the galleon laden with the wealth ofthe Philippines and bound for Acapulco. When she hove in sight there wasa chase, a hot engagement, and a capture by the English Admiral. "Thisprize, " says the historian of the voyage, "contained one hundred andtwenty-two thousand _pesos_ of gold, besides great quantities of richsilks, satins, damasks, and musk, with a good stock of provisions. " Inthose romantic and adventurous days piracy was legalized by formallicense; the spoils were supposed to consist of gold and silver only, orof light movable goods. 

The next English filibuster to visit the California coast was CaptainWoodes Rogers--arriving in November, 1709. He described the natives ofthe California peninsula as being "quite naked, and strangers to theEuropean manner of trafficking. They lived in huts made of boughs andleaves, erected in the form of bowers; with a fire before the door, round which they lay and slept. Some of the women wore pearls abouttheir necks, which they fastened with a string of silk grass, havingfirst notched them round. " Captain Rogers imagined that the wearers ofthe pearls did not know how to bore them, and it is more than likelythat they did not. Neither did they know the value of these pearls; for"they were mixed with sticks, bits of shells, and berries, which theythought so great an ornament that they would not accept glass beads ofvarious colors, which the English offered them. "

The narrator says: "The men are straight and well built, having longblack hair, and are of a dark brown complexion. They live by hunting andfishing. They use bows and arrows and are excellent marksmen. The women, whose features are rather disagreeable, are employed in makingfishing-lines, or in gathering grain, which they grind upon a stone. Thepeople were willing to assist the English in filling water, and wouldsupply them with whatever they could get; they were a very honestpeople, and would not take the least thing without permission. "

Such were the aborigines of California. Captain Woodes Rogers did nothesitate to take whatever he could lay his hands on. He captured the"great Manila ship, " as the chronicle records. "The prize was calledNuestra Seņora de la Incarnacion, commanded by Sir John Pichberty, agallant Frenchman. The prisoners said that the cargo in India amountedto two millions of dollars. She carried one hundred and ninety-threemen, and mounted twenty guns. "

The exact locality of Drake's Bay was for years a vexed question. Soable an authority as Alexander von Humboldt says: "The port of SanFrancisco is frequently confounded by geographers with the Port ofDrake, farther north, under 38° 10' of latitude, called by the Spaniardsthe Puerto de Bodega. "

The truth is, Bodega Bay lies some miles north of Drake's Bay--or Jack'sHarbor, as the sailors call it; the latter, according to the log of theAdmiral, may be found in latitude 37° 59' 5"; longitude 122° 57-1/2'. The cliffs about Drake's Bay resemble in height and color, those ofGreat Britain in the English Channel at Brighton and Dover; therefore itseems quite natural that Sir Francis should have called the land NewAlbion. As for the origin of the name California, some etymologistscontend that it is derived from two Latin words: _calida fornax_; or, asthe Spanish put it, _caliente fornalla_, --a hot furnace. Certainly it ishot enough in the interior, though the coast is ever cool. The nameseems to have been applied to Lower California between 1535 and 1539. Mr. Edward Everett Hale rediscovered in 1862 an old printed romance inwhich the name California was, before the year 1520, applied to afabulous island that lay near the Indus and likewise "very near theTerrestrial Paradise. " The colonists under Cortez were perhaps the firstto apply it to Lower California, which was long thought to be an island. 

The name San Francisco was given to a port on the California coast forthe first time by Cermeņon, who ran ashore near Point Reyes, or inDrake's Bay, when voyaging from the Philippines in 1595. At any rate, the name was not given to the famous bay that now bears it before 1769, and until that date it was unknown to the world. It is not true, as somehave conjectured, that the name San Francisco was given to any port inmemory of Sir Francis Drake. Spanish Catholics gave the name in honor ofSt. Francis of Assisi. Drake was an Englishman and a freebooter, who hadno love for the saints. 

That the Bay of San Francisco should have so long remained undiscoveredis the more remarkable inasmuch as many efforts were made to survey andsettle the coast. California was looked upon as the El Dorado of NewSpain. It was believed that it abounded in pearls, gold, silver, andother metals; and even in diamonds and precious stones. Fruitlessexpeditions, private or royal, set forth in 1615, 1633 and 1634; 1640, 1642 and 1648; 1665 and 1668. But nothing came of these. A hundred yearslater the Spanish friars established their peaceful missions, and in1776 the mission church of San Francisco was dedicated. 

[Illustration: The Outer Signal Station at the Golden Gate]

 * * * * *

At last the fog began to show signs of life and motion. Huge masses ofopaque mist, that had shut us in like walls of alabaster, were rentasunder and noiselessly rolled away. The change was magical. In a fewmoments we found ourselves under a cloudless sky, upon a sparkling sea, flooded with sunshine, and the Golden Gate wide open to give us welcome. 

V. 

ATOP O' TELEGRAPH HILL

Perhaps it is a mile wide, that Golden Gate; and it is more bronze thangolden. A fort was on our right hand; one of those dear old brickblockhouses that were formidable in their day, but now are as houses ofcards. Drop one shell within its hollow, and there will be nothing andno one left to tell the tale. 

Down the misty coast, beyond the fort, was Point Lobos--a place wherewolves did once inhabit; farther south lie the semi-tropics and thefragrant orange lands; while on our left, to the north, is PointBonita--pretty enough in the sunshine, --and thereabout is Drake's Bay. Behind us, dimly outlined on the horizon, the Farallones lie faintlyblue, like exquisite cloud-islands. The north shore of the entrance tothe Bay was rather forbidding, --it always is. The whole California shoreline is bare, bleak, and unbeautiful. It is six miles from the GoldenGate to the sea-wall of San Francisco. There was no sea-wall in thosedays. 

We were steaming directly east, with the Pacific dead astern. Beyond thefort were scantily furnished hill-slopes. That quadrangle, with a longrow of low white houses on three sides of it, is the _presidio_--thebarracks; a lorner or lonelier spot it were impossible to picture. Therewere no trees there, no shrubs; nothing but grass, that was green enoughin the rainy winter season but as yellow as straw in the drouth of thelong summer. Beyond the _presidio_ were the Lagoon and Washerwoman'sBay. Black Point was the extremest suburb in the early days; and beyondit Meigg's Wharf ran far into the North Bay, and was washed by theswift-flowing tide. 

San Francisco has as many hills as Rome. The most conspicuous of thesestands at the northeast corner of the town; it is Telegraph Hill, uponwhose brawny shoulder stood the first home we knew in the youngMetropolis. After rounding Telegraph Hill, we saw all the city front, and it was not much to see: a few wooden wharves crowded with shippingand backed by a row of one or two-story frame buildings perched uponpiles. The harbor in front of the city--more like an open roadstead thana harbor, for it was nearly a dozen miles to the opposite shore--wasdotted with sailing-vessels of almost every description, swinging atanchor, and making it a pretty piece of navigation to pick one's wayamongst them in safety. 

As the John L. Stevens approached her dock we saw that an immense crowdhad gathered to give us welcome. The excitement on ship and shore wasvery great. After a separation of perhaps years, husbands and wives andfamilies were about to be reunited. Our joy was boundless; for we soonrecognized our father in the waiting, welcoming throng. But there weremany whose disappointment was bitter indeed when they learned that theirloved ones were not on board. Often a ship brought letters instead ofthe expected wife and family; for at the last moment some unforeseencircumstance may have prevented the departure of the one so looked forand so longed for. In the confusion of landing we nearly lost our wits, and did not fully recover them until we found ourselves in our own newhome in the then youngest State in the Union. 

How well I remember it all! We were housed on Union Street, betweenMontgomery and Kearny Streets, and directly opposite the publicschool--a pretentious building for that period, inasmuch as it was builtof brick that was probably shipped around Cape Horn. California houses, such as they were, used to come from very distant parts of the globe inthe early Fifties; some of them were portable, and had been sent acrossthe sea to be set up at the purchaser's convenience. They could bepitched like tents on the shortest possible notice, and the fact wasevident in many cases. 

Our house--a double one of modest proportions--was of brick, and Ithink the only one on our side of the street for a considerabledistance. There was a brick house over the way, on the corner ofMontgomery Street, with a balcony in front of it and a grocery on theground-floor. That grocery was like a country store: one could getanything there; and from the balcony above there was a wonderful view. Indeed that was one of the jumping-off places; for a steep stairway leddown the hill to the dock two hundred feet below. As for our neighbors, they dwelt in frame houses, one or two stories in height; and his wasthe happier house that had a little strip of flowery-land in front ofit, and a breathing space in the rear. 

The school--our first school in California--backed into the hill acrossthe street from us. The girls and the boys had each an inclosed spacefor recreation. It could not be called a playground, for there was noground visible. It was a platform of wood heavily timbered beneath andfenced in; from the front of it one might have cast one's self to thestreet below, at the cost of a broken bone or two. In those days morethan one leg was fractured by an accidental fall from a soaringsidewalk. 

Above and beyond the school-house Telegraph Hill rose a hundred feet ormore. Our street marked the snow-line, as it were; beyond it the Hillwas not inhabited save by flocks of goats that browsed there all theyear round, and the herds of boys that gave them chase, especially of aholiday. The Hill was crowned by a shanty that had seen its best days. It had been the lookout from the time when the Forty-Niners began towatch for fresh arrivals. From the observatory on its roof--a primitiveaffair--all ships were sighted as they neared the Golden Gate, and theglad news was telegraphed by a system of signals to the citizens below. Not a day, not an hour, but watchful eyes sought that signal in the hopeof reading there the glad tidings that their ship had come. 

The Hill sloped suddenly, from the signal station, on every side. On thenorth and east it terminated abruptly in artificial cliffs of a dizzyheight. The rocks had been blasted from their bases to make room for asteadily increasing commerce, and the débris was shipped away as ballastin the vessels that were chartered to bring passengers and provision tothe coast, and found nothing in the line of freight to carry from it. 

Upon those northern and eastern slopes of the Hill a few venturesomecottagers had built their nests. The cottages were indeed nestlike: theywere so small, so compact, so cosy, so overrun with vines and floweringfoliage. Usually of one story, or of a story and a half at most, theyclung to the hillside facing the water, and looking out upon its nobleexpanse from tiny balconies as delicate and dainty as toys. Theirgarden-plots were set on end; they must needs adapt themselves to theangle of demarkation; they loomed above their front-yards while theirback-yards lorded it over their roofs. Indeed they were usuallyapproached by ascending or descending stairways, or perchance by airybridges that spanned little gullies where ran rivulets in the winterseason; and they were a trifle dangerous to encounter after dark. Therewere parrots on perches at the doorways of those cottages; andsong-birds in cages that were hidden away in vines. There were petpoodles there. I think there were more lap-dogs than watch-dogs in thatearly California. 

And there were pleasant people within those hanging gardens, --people whoseemed to have drifted there and were living their lyrical if lonelylives in semi-solitude on islands in the air. I always envied them. Iwas sorry that we were housed like other folk, and fronted on a streetthan which nothing could have been more commonplace or less interesting. Its one redeeming feature in my eyes was its uncompromising steepness;nothing that ran on wheels ever ran that way, but toiled painfully tothe top, tacking from side to side, forever and forever, all the wayup. 

Weary were the beasts of burden that ascended that hill of difficulty. There was the itinerant marketer, with his overladen cart, and his whitehorse, very much winded. He was a Yorkshire man, and he cried with aloud voice his appetizing wares: "Cabbage, taters, onions, wild duck, wild goose!" Well do I remember the refrain. Probably there were fewdomestic fowls in the market then; moreover, even our drinking water waspeddled about the streets and sold to us by the huge pailful. 

The goats knew Saturday and Sunday by heart. Every Saturday we lads werebusier than bees. We had at intervals during the week collected whatempty tin cans we might have chanced upon, and you may be sure they werenot a few. The markets of California, in early times, were stocked withcanned goods. Flour came to us in large cans; probably the barrel wouldnot have been proof against mould during the long voyage around theHorn. Everything eatable--I had almost said and drinkable--we had incans; and these cans when emptied were cast into the rubbish heap andfinally consigned to the dump-cart. 

We boys all became smelters, and for a very good reason. There was amarket for soft solder; we could dispose of it without difficulty; wecould in this way put money in our purse and experience the gloriousemotion awakened by the spirit of independence. With our own money, earned in the sweat of our brows--it was pretty hot work melting thesolder out of the old cans and moulding it in little pig-leads of ourown invention, --we could do as we pleased and no questions asked. Oh, itwas a joy past words, --the kindling of the furnace fires, the adjustingof the cans, the watching for the first movement of the melting solder!It trickled down into the ashes like quicksilver, and there we let itcool in shapeless masses; then we remelted it in skillets (usuallysmuggled from the kitchen for that purpose), and ran the fused metalinto the moulds; and when it had cooled we were away in haste to disposeof it. 

Some of us became expert amateur metallists, and made what we lookedupon as snug little fortunes; yet they did not go far or last us long. The smallest coin in circulation was a dime. No one would accept afive-cent piece. As for coppers, they are scarcely yet in vogue. Moneywas made so easily and spent so carelessly in the early days the wonderis that any one ever grew rich. 

A quarter of a dollar we called two "bits. " If we wished to buy anythingthe price of which was one bit and we had a dime in our pocket, we gavethe dime for the article, and the bargain was considered perfectlysatisfactory. If we had no dime, we gave a quarter of a dollar andreceived in change a dime; we thus paid fifty per cent more for thearticle than we should have done if we had given a dime for it. But thatmade no difference: a quarter called for two bits' worth of anything onsale. A dime was one bit, but two dimes were not two bits; and it wasonly a very mean person--in our estimation--who would change his halfdollar into five dimes and get five bits' worth of goods for four bits'worth of silver. 

[Illustration: City of Oakland in 1856]

Sunday is ever the people's day, and a San Francisco Sunday used to beas lively as the Lord's Day at any of the capitals of Europe. How thetown used to flock to Telegraph Hill on a Sunday in the olden time! Theywere mostly quiet folk who went there, and they went to feast their eyesupon one of the loveliest of landscapes or waterscapes. They probablytook their lunch with them, and their families--if they had them; thoughfamilies were infrequent in the Fifties. They wandered about until theyhad chosen their point of view, and then they took possession of anunclaimed portion of the Hill. They "squatted, " as was the custom of thetime. The "squatter" claimed the right of sovereignty, and exercised itso long as he was left unmolested. 

One man seemed to have as much right as another on Telegraph Hill. Andone right was always his: no one disputed him the right of vision; heshared it with his neighbor, and was willing to share it with the wholeworld. For generations he has held it, and he will probably continue tohold it so long as the old Hill stands. From the heights his eye sweepsa scene of beauty. There is the Golden Gate, bathed in sunset glories;and there the northern shore line that climbs skyward where MountTamalpais takes on his mantle of mist. There is Saucelito, with itsgreen terraces resting upon the tree-tops; and there the bit ofsheltered water that seems always steeped in sunshine, --now the haunt ofhouse boats, then the haven of a colony of Neapolitan fishermen; andAngel Island, with its military post; and Fort Alcatraz, a rocky bubbleafloat in mid-channel and one mass of fortifications. 

What an inland sea it is--the Bay of San. Francisco, seventy miles inlength, from ten to twelve in width; dotted with islands, and capable ofharboring all the fleets of all the civilized or uncivilized worlds! Thenorthern part of it, beyond the narrows, is known as the Bay of SanPablo; the Straits of Carquinez connect it with Suisun Bay, which is asleepy sheet of water fed by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. 

To the east is Yerba-Buena, vulgarly known as Goat Island; and beyond itthe Contra Costa, with its Alameda, Oakland, and Fruit Vale; then theCoast Range; and atop of all and beyond all Mount Diablo, with its threethousand eight hundred feet of perpendicularity, beyond whose summitthe sun rises, and from whose peaks almost half the State is visible andalmost half the sea, --or at least it seems so--but that's anothervision!

VI. 

PAVEMENT PICTURES

We had been but a few days in San Francisco when a new-found friend, scarcely my senior, but who was a comparatively old settler, took me bythe hand and led me forth to view the town. He was my neighbor, and aright good fellow, with the surprising composure--for one of hisyears--that is so early, so easily, and so naturally acquired by thoseliving in camps and border-lands. 

We descended Telegraph Hill by Dupont Street as far as Pacific Street. So steep was the way that, at intervals, the modern fire-escape wouldhave been a welcome aid to our progress. Sidewalks, always of plank andoften not broader than two boards placed longitudinally, led on to stepsthat plunged headlong from one terrace to another. From the veranda ofone house one might have leaped to the roof of the house just below--ifso disposed, --for the houses seemed to be set one upon another, so acutewas the angle of their base-line. The town stood on end just there, andat the foot of it was a foreign quarter. 

In those days there were at least four foreign quarters--Spanish, French, Italian, and Chinese. We knew the Spanish Quarter at the foot ofthe hill by the human types that inhabited it; by the balconies likehanging gardens, clamorous with parrots; and by the dark-eyed senoritas, with lace mantillas drawn over their blue-black hair; by the shopwindows filled with Mexican pottery; the long strings of cardinal-redpeppers that swung under the awnings over the doors of the sellers ofspicy things; and also by the delicious odors that were wafted to usfrom the tables where Mexicans, Spaniards, Chilians, Peruvians, andHispano-Americans were discussing the steaming _tamal_, the fragrant_frijol_, and other fiery dishes that might put to the blush theineffectual pepper-pot. 

Everywhere we heard the most mellifluous of languages--the "lovelylingo, " we used to call it; everywhere we saw the people of the quarterlounging in doorways or windows or on galleries, dressed as if they wereabout to appear in a rendition of the opera of "The Barber of Seville, "or at a fancy-dress ball. Figaros were on every hand, and Rosinas andDons of all degrees. At times a magnificent Caballero dashed by on ahalf-tamed bronco. He rode in the shade of a sombrero a yard wide, crusted with silver embroidery. His Mexican saddle was embossed withhuge Mexican dollars; his jacket as gaily ornamented as abull-fighter's; his trousers open from the hip, and with a chain ofsilver buttons down their flapping hems; his spurs, huge wheels withmurderous spikes, were fringed with little bells that jangled as herode, --and this to the accompaniment of much strumming of guitars andthe incense of cigarros. 

Near the Spanish Quarter ran the Barbary Coast. There were the divesbeneath the pavement, where it was not wise to enter; blood was on thosethresholds, and within hovered the shadow of death. Beyond, we enteredChinatown, as rare a bit of old China as is to be found without theGreat Wall itself. Chinatown has grown amazingly within the last fortyyears, but it has in reality gained little in interest. There is more ofit: that is the only difference; and what there is of it is moredifficult of approach. The Joss House, the theatre, with its greatoriginal "continuous performance"--its tragedy half a year inlength, --flourished there. The glittering, spectacular restaurant waswide open to the public, and so was everything else. That fact made allthe difference between Chinatown in the Fifties and Chinatown fortyyears later. 

My companion and I tarried long on Dupont Street, between Pacific andSacramento Streets. The shops were like peep shows on a larger scale. How bright they were! how gay with color! how rich with carvings andcurios. Each was like a set-scene on the stage. The shopkeepers andtheir aids were like actors in a play. They seemed really to be playingand not trying to engage in any serious business. Surely it would havebeen quite beneath the dignity of such distinguished gentlemen to takethe smallest interest in the affairs of trade. They were clad in silksand satins and furs of great value; they had a little finger-nail aslong as a slice of quill pen; they had tea on tables of carved teak; andthey had impossible pipes that breathed unspeakable odors. They worebracelets of priceless jade. They had private boxes, which hung from theceiling and looked like cages for some unclassified bird; and they couldgo up into those boxes when life at the tea-table became tiresome, andget quite another point of view. There they could look down upon theworld of traffic that never did anything in their shops, as far as wecould see; and, still murmuring to themselves in a tongue that soundsuntranslatable and a voice that was never known to rise above a stagewhisper, they could at one and the same moment regard with scorn theChristian, keep an eye on the cash-boy, and make perfect pictures ofthemselves. 

[Illustration: Interior of the El Dorado]

In some parts of that strange street, where everybody was very busy butapparently never accomplished anything, there were no fronts to therooms on the groundfloor. If those rooms were ever closed--it seemed tome they never were, --some one kindly put up a long row of shutters, andthat end was accomplished. When the shutters were down the whole placewas wide open, and anybody, everybody, could enter and depart at his ownsweet will. This is exactly what he did; we did it ourselves, but wedidn't know why we did it. The others seemed to know all about it. 

There was a long table in the centre of each room; it was alwayssurrounded by swarms of Chinamen. Not a few foreigners of variousnationalities were there. They were all intensely interested in somegame that was being played upon that table. We heard the "chink" ofmoney; and as the players came and went some were glad and some were sadand some were mad. These were the gambling halls of Chinatown. They werenot at all beautiful or alluring to the eye, but they cast a spell overthe minds and the pockets of men that was irresistible. Nowadays theplace is kept under lock and key, and you must give the countersign oryou will be turned away from the door thereof by a Chinaman whose faceis the image of injured innocence. 

The authors of the annals of San Francisco, 1854, say:

"During 1853, most of the moral, intellectual, and socialcharacteristics of the inhabitants of San Francisco were nearly asalready described in the reviews of previous years. There was still theold reckless energy, the old love of pleasure, the fast making and fastspending of money; the old hard labor and wild delights; jobberies, official and political corruption; thefts, robberies, and violentassaults; murders, duels and suicides; gambling, drinking, and generalextravagance and dissipation. . . . The people had wealth at command, andall the passions of youth were burning within them; and they often, therefore, outraged public decency. Yet somehow the oldest residentersand the very family-men loved the place, with all its brave wickednessand splendid folly. "

I can testify that the town knew little or no change in the two yearsthat followed. The "El Dorado" on the plaza, and the "Arcade" and"Polka" on Commercial Street, were still in full blast. How came I awareof that fact? I was a child; my guide, philosopher and friend was achild, and we were both as innocent as children should be. It iswritten, "Children and fools speak the truth. " I may add, "Children and'fools rush in where angels fear to tread. '" The doors of "El Dorado, "of the "Arcade, " and the "Polka" were ever open to the public. We sawfrom the sidewalk gaily-decorated interiors; we heard enchanting music, and there seemed to be a vast deal of jollity within. No one tried toprevent our entering; we merely followed the others; and, indeed, it wasall a mystery to us. Cards were being dealt at the faro tables, anddealt by beautiful women in bewildering attire. They also turned thewheels of fortune or misfortune, and threw dice, and were skilled in allthe arts that beguile and betray the innocent. The town was filled withsuch resorts; some were devoted to the patronage of the more exclusiveset; many were traps into which the miner from the mountain gulches felland where he soon lost his bag of "dust, "--his whole fortune, for whichhe had been so long and so wearily toiling. There he was shoulder toshoulder with the greaser and the lascar, the "shoulder-striker" and thehoodlum; and they were all busy with monte, faro, rondo, androuge-et-noir. 

There was no limit to the gambling in those days. There was no questionof age or color or sex: opportunity lay in wait for inclination at thestreet corners and in the highways and the byways. The wonder is thatthere were not more victims driven to madness or suicide. 

The pictures were not all so gloomy. Six times San Francisco wasdevastated by fire, and all within two years--or, to speak accurately, within eighteen months. Many millions were lost; many enterprising andsuccessful citizens were in a few hours rendered penniless. Some wereagain and again "burned out"; but they seemed to spring like the famedbird, who shall for once be nameless, from their own ashes. 

It became evident that an efficient fire department was an immediate andimperative necessity. The best men of the city--men prominent in everytrade, calling and profession--volunteered their services, and headed asubscription list that swelled at once into the thousands. Perhaps therenever was a finer volunteer fire department than that which was for manyyears the pride and glory of San Francisco. On the Fourth of July it wasthe star feature of the procession; and it paraded most of the streetsthat were level enough for wheels to run on--and when the mud wasnavigable, for they turned out even in the rainy season on days of civicfestivity. Their engines and hose carts and hook and ladder trucks wereso lavishly ornamented with flowers, banners, streamers, and even peteagles, dogs, and other mascots, that they might without hesitation haveengaged in any floral battle on any Riviera and been sure of victory. 

The magnificence of the silver trumpets and the quantity and splendor ofthe silver trappings of those fire companies pass all belief. It beginsto seem to me now, as I write, that I must have dreamed it, --it was allso much too fine for any ordinary use. But I know that I did not dreamit; that there was never anything truer or better or more efficientanywhere under the sun than the San Francisco fire department in thebrave days of old. Representatives of almost every nation on earth couldtestify to this, and did repeatedly testify to it in almost everylanguage known to the human tongue; for there never was a more cosmicalcommonwealth than sprang out of chaos on that Pacific coast; and therenever was a city less given to following in the footsteps of its elderand more experienced sisters. Nor was there ever a more spontaneousoutburst of happy-go-luckiness than that which made of young SanFrancisco a very Babel and a bouncing baby Babylon. 

[Illustration: Warner's at Meigg's Wharf]

VII. 

A BOY'S OUTING

There was joy in the heart, luncheon in the knapsack, and a sparkle inthe eye of each of us as we set forth on our exploring expedition, allof a sunny Saturday. Outside of California there never were suchSaturdays as those. We were perfectly sure for eight months in the yearthat it wouldn't rain a drop; and as for the other four months--well, perhaps it wouldn't. It is true that Longfellow had sung, even in thosedays:

 Unto each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. 

Our days were not dark or dreary, --indeed, they could not possibly be inthe two-thirds-of-the-year-dry season. It did not rain so very much evenin the rainy season, when it had a perfect right to; therefore there wasjoy in the heart and no umbrella anywhere about when we prepared to setforth on our day of discovery. 

We began our adventure at Meigg's Wharf. We didn't go out to the end ofit, because there was nothing but crabs there, being hauled up atfrequent intervals by industrious crabbers, whose nets fairly fringedthe wharf. They lay on their backs by scores and hundreds, and wavednumberless legs in the air--I mean the crabs, not the crabbers. We usedto go crabbing ourselves when we felt like it, with a net made of a bitof mosquito-bar stretched over an iron hoop, and with a piece of meattied securely in the middle of it. When we hauled up those home-madehoop-nets--most everything seems to have been home-made in thosedays--we used to find one, two, perhaps three huge crabs revolvingclumsily about the centre of attraction in the hollow of the net; andthen we shouted in glee and went almost wild with excitement. 

Just at the beginning of Meigg's Wharf there was a house ofentertainment that no doubt had a history and a mystery even in thoseyoung days. We never quite comprehended it: we were too young for that, and too shy and too well-bred to make curious or impertinent inquiry. Wesometimes stood at the wide doorway--it was forever invitingly open, --and looked with awe and amazement at paintings richly framed and hungso close together that no bit of the wall was visible. There was a barat the farther end of the long room, --there was always a bar somewherein those days; and there were cages filled with strange birds andbeasts, --as any one might know with his eyes shut, for the odor of itall was repelling. 

The strangest feature of that most strange hostelry was the amazingwealth of cobwebs that mantled it. Cobwebs as dense as crape waved industy rags from the ceiling; they veiled the pictures and festooned thepicture-frames, that shone dimly through them. Not one of these cobwebswas ever molested--or had been from the beginning of time, as it seemedto us. A velvet carpet on the floor was worn smooth and almost no traceof its rich flowery pattern was left; but there were many square boxesfilled with sand or sawdust and reeking with cigar stumps and tobaccojuice. Need I add that some of those pictures were such as our young andinnocent eyes ought never to have been laid on? Nor were they fit forthe eyes of others. 

There was something uncanny about that house. We never knew just what itwas, but we had a faint idea that the proprietor's wife or daughter wasa witch; and that she, being as cobwebby as the rest of its furnishings, was never visible. The wharf in front of the house was a free menagerie. There were bears and other beasts behind prison bars, a very populousmonkey cage, and the customary "happy family" looking as dreadfullybored as usual. Then again there were whole rows of parrots andcockatoos and macaws as splendid as rainbow tints could make them, andwith tails a yard long at least. 

From this bewildering pageant it was but a step to the beach below. Indeed the water at high tide flowed under that house with much foam andfury; for it was a house founded upon the sand, and it long sincetoppled to its fall, as all such houses must. We followed the beach, that rounded in a curve toward Black Point. Just before reaching thePoint there was a sandhill of no mean proportions; this, of course, weclimbed with pain, only to slide down with perspiration. It was our Alp, and we ascended and descended it with a flood of emotion not unmixedwith sand. 

Near by was a wreck, --a veritable wreck; for a ship had been drivenashore in the fog and she was left to her fate--and our mercy. Probablyit would not have paid to float her again; for of ships there were morethan enough. Everything worth while was coming into the harbor, andalmost nothing going out of it. We looked upon that old hulk as ourprivate and personal property. At low tide we could board her dry-shod;at high tide we could wade out to her. We knew her intimately from stemto stern, her several decks, her cabins, lockers, holds; we had countedall her ribs over and over again, and paced her quarter-deck, and gazedup at her stumpy masts--she had been well-nigh dismantled, --and givensailing orders to our fellows amidships in the very ecstasy ofcircumnavigation. She has gone, gone to her grave in the sea thatlapped her timbers as they lay a-rotting under the rocks; and nowpestiferous factories make hideous the landscape we found so fair. 

[Illustration: The Old Flume at Black Point, 1856]

As for Black Point, it was a wilderness of beauty in our eyes; a veryparadise of live-oak and scrub-oak, and of oak that had gone mad in thewhirlwinds and sandstorms that revelled there. Beyond Black Point weclimbed a trestle and mounted a flume that was our highway to the sea. Through this flume the city was supplied with water. The flume was asquare trough, open at the top and several miles in length. It was casedin a heavy frame; and along the timbers that crossed over it lay planks, one after another, wherever the flume was uncovered. This narrow path, intended for the convenience of the workmen who kept the flume inrepair, was our delight. We followed it in the full assurance that wewere running a great risk. Beneath us was the open trough, where thewater, two or three feet in depth, was rushing as in a mill-race. Had wefallen, we must have been swept along with it, and perhaps to our doom. Sometimes we were many feet in the air, crossing a cove where the seabroke at high tide; sometimes we were in a cut among the rocks on ajutting point; and sometimes the sand from the desert above us drifteddown and buried the flume, now roofed over, quite out of sight. 

So we came to Fort Point and the Golden Gate; and beyond the Fort therewas more flume and such a stretch of sea and shore and sunshine ascaused us to leap with gladness. We could follow the beach for miles; itwas like a pavement of varnished sand, cool to the foot and burnished tothe eye. And what sea-treasure lay strewn there! Mollusks, not sodelicate or so decorative as the shells we had brought with us from theSouthern Seas, but still delightful. Such starfish and cloudy, starch-like jelly-fish, and all the livelier creeping and crawlingcreatures that populate the shore! Brown sea-kelp and sea-greensea-grass and the sea-anemone that are the floating gardens of thesea-gods and sea-goddesses; sea-birds, soft-bosomed as doves and cryingwith their ceaseless and sorrowful cry; and all they that are sea-bornealong the sea-board, --these were there in their glory. 

We hid in caverns and there dreamed our sea-dreams. We ate our lunchesand played at being smugglers; then we built fires of drift-wood to warnthe passing ships that we were castaways on a desert island; but whenthey took no heed of our signals of distress we were not too sorry norin the least distressful. 

At the seal rocks we tarried long; for there are few spots within thereach of the usual sight-seer where an enormous family of sea-lions canbe seen at home, sporting in their native element, and at liberty tocome and go in the wide Pacific at their own sweet wills. There they hadlived for numberless generations unmolested; there they still live, forthey are under the protection of the law. 

The famous Cliff House is built upon the cliff above them, and above itis a garden bristling with statues. Thousands upon thousands of curiousidlers stare the sea-folks out of countenance--or try to; but they, thesons of the salt sea and the daughters of the deep, climb into thecrevices of the rocks to sun themselves, unheeding; or leap into thewaves that girdle them and sport like the fabled monsters of marinemythology. Seal, sea-leopard, or sea-lion--whatever they may be--theycry with one voice night and day; and it is not a pleasant cry either, though a far one, they mouth so horribly. Long ago it inspired a wit tomadness and he made a joke; the same old joke has been made by those whofollowed after him. It will continue to be made with impertinentimpunity until the sea gives up its seals; for the temptation is theredaily and hourly, and the humorist is but human--he can not long resistit; so he will buttonhole you on the veranda of the Cliff House andwhisper in your astonished ear as if he were imparting a state secret:"Their bark is on the sea!"

The way home was sometimes a weary one. After leaving the bluff abovethe shore, we struck into an almost interminable succession ofsand-dunes. There was neither track nor trail there; there was no oasisto gladden us with its vision of beauty. The pale poet of destiny anddespair has written:

 In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there still is a tree; And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee. 

There was no fountain in our desert, and we knew it well enough; for wehad often braved its sands. In that wide waste there was not even thesolitary tree that moved the poet to song; nor a bird in our solitude, save a sea-gull cutting across-lots from the ocean to the bay in searchof a dinner. There were some straggling vines on the edge of our desert, thick-leaved and juicy; and these were doing their best to keep fromgetting buried alive. The sand was always shifting out yonder, and therewas a square mile or two of it. We could easily have been lost in it butfor our two everlasting landmarks--Mount Tamalpais across the water tothe north, and in the south Lone Mountain. Lone Mountain was ourCalvary--a green hill that loomed above the graves where slept so manywho were dear to us. The cross upon its summit we had often visited inour holiday pilgrimages. They were _holydays_, when our childish feettoiled hopefully up that steep height; for that cross was the beaconthat lighted the world-weary to everlasting rest. 

And so we crossed the desert, over our shoetops in sand; climbing onehill after another, only to slide or glide or ride down the yieldingslope on the farther side. Meanwhile the fog came in like a wet blanket. It swathed all the landscape in impalpable snow; it chilled us and itthrilled us, for there was danger of our going quite astray in it; butby and by we got into the edge of the town, and what a very ragged edgeit was in the dim long ago! Once in the edge of the town, we weremasters of the situation: you couldn't lose us even in the dark. And soended the outing of our merry crew, --merry though weary and worn; yetnot so worn and weary but we could raise at parting a glad "Hoorah forHealth, Happiness, and the Hills of Home!"

VIII. 

THE MISSION DOLORES

I have read somewhere in the pages of a veracious author how, five orsix years before my day, he had ridden through chaparral from YerbaBuena to the Mission Dolores with the howl of the wolf foraccompaniment. Yerba Buena is now San Francisco, and the mission is apart of the city; it is not even a suburb. 

In 1855 there were two plank-roads leading from the city to the MissionDolores; on each of these omnibuses ran every half hour. The plank-roadwas a straight and narrow way, cut through acres of chaparral--thicketsof low evergreen oaks, --and leading over forbidding wastes of sand. Tostretch a figure, it was as if the sea-of-sand had been divided in themidst, so that the children of Israel might have passed dry-shod, andthe Egyptians pursuing them might have been swallowed up in the billowsof sand that flowed over them at intervals. 

Somewhere among those treacherous dunes--of them it might indeed be saidthat "the mountains skipped like rams and the little hills likelambs, "--somewhere thereabout was located the once famous but nowfabulous Pipesville, the country-seat of my old friend, "Jeems Pipes ofPipesville. " He was longer and better known to the world as Stephen C. Massett, composer of the words and music of that once most popular ofsongs, "When the Moon on the Lake is Beaming, " as well as many anothercharming ballad. 

Stephen C. Massett, a most delightful companion and a famous diner-out, give a concert of vocal music interspersed with recitations andimitations, in the school-house that stood at the northwest corner ofthe plaza. This was on Monday evening, June 22, 1849; and it was thefirst public entertainment, the first regular amusement, ever given inSan Francisco. The only piano in the country was engaged for theoccasion; the tickets were three dollars each, and the proceeds yieldedover five hundred dollars; although it cost sixteen dollars to have thepiano used on the occasion moved from one side of the plaza, orPortsmouth Square, to the other. On a copy of the programme which nowlies before me I find this line: "N. B. --Front seats reserved forladies!" History records that there were but four ladiespresent--probably the only four in the town at the time. Massett died inNew York city a few months ago, --a man who had friends in every countryunder the sun, and, I believe, no enemy. 

I remember the Mission Dolores as a detached settlement with apronounced Spanish flavor. There was one street worth mentioning, andonly one. It was lined with low-walled adobe houses, roofed with the redcurved tiles which add so much to the adobe houses that otherwise wouldbe far from picturesque. The adobe is a sun-baked brick; it ismud-color; its walls look as if they were moulded of mud. The adobeswere the native California habitations. We spoke of them as adobes;although it would probably be as correct, etymologically, to refer tobrick houses as bricks. 

There were a few ramshackle hotels at the mission; for in the early daysit seemed as if everybody either boarded or took in boarders, and manyfamilies lived for years in hotels rather than attempt to keep house inthe wilds of San Francisco. The mission was about one house deep eachside of the main street. You might have turned a corner and foundyourself face to face with the cattle in the meadow. As for the goats, they met you at the doorway and followed you down the street like dogs. 

At the top of this street stood the mission church and what few missionbuildings were left for the use of the Fathers. The church and thegrounds were the most interesting features of the place, and it was afavorite resort of the citizens of San Francisco; yet it most likelywould not have been were the church the sole attraction. Here, inappropriate enclosures, there were bull-fighting, bear-baiting, andhorse-racing. Many duels were fought here, and some of them were so welladvertised that they drew almost as well as a cock-fight. Cock-fightingwas a special Sunday diversion. Through the mission ran the highway tothe pleasant city of San José; it ran through a country unsurpassed inbeauty and fertility. Above the mission towered the mission peaks, andabout it the hillslopes were mantled with myriads of wild flowers, thesplendor and variety of which have added to the fame of California. 

The mission church was never handsome; but the facade with the old bellshanging in their niches, and the almost naive simplicity of itsarchitectural adornment, are extremely pleasing. It is a long, narrow, dingy nave one enters. Its walls of adobe do not retain their coats ofwhitewash for any length of time; in the rainy season they are damp andalmost clammy. The floor is of beaten earth; the Stations upon the wallsof the rudest description; the narrow windows but dimly light theinterior, and rather add to than dispel the gloom that has beengathering there for ages. The high altar is, of course, in strikingcontrast with all that dark interior: it is over-decorated in theMexican manner--flowers, feathers, tinsel ornaments, tall candlestickselaborately gilded; all the statues examples of the primitive art thatappealed strongly to the uncultivated eye; and all the adornments gay, gaudy, if not garish. Do you wonder at this? When you enter the oldchurch at the Mission Dolores you should recall its history, and picturein your imagination the people for whom the mission was established. 

The Franciscans founded their first mission in California at San Diegoin 1769. The Mission Dolores was founded on St. Francis' Day, 1776. Tofound a mission was a serious matter; yet one and twenty missions werein the full tide of success before the good work was abandoned. Thefriars were the first fathers of the land: they did whatever was donefor it and for the people who originally inhabited it. They explored thecountry lying between the coast range and the sea. They set apart largetracts of land for cultivation and for the pasturing of flocks andherds. For a long time Old and New Spain contributed liberally to whatwas known as the Pious Fund of California. The fund was managed by theConvent of San Fernando and certain trustees in Mexico, and the proceedstransmitted from the city of Mexico to the friars in California. 

The mission church was situated, as a rule, in the centre of the missionlands, or reservations. The latter comprised several thousand acres ofland. With the money furnished by the Pious Fund of California thechurch was erected, and surrounded by the various buildings occupied bythe Fathers, the retainers, and the employees who had been trained toagriculture and the simple branches of mechanics. The presbytery, or therectory, was the chief guest-house in the land. There were no hotels inthe California of that day, but the traveller, the prospector, thespeculator, was ever welcome at the mission board; and it was abountiful board until the rapacity of the Federal Government laid itwaste. Alexander Forbes, in his "History of Upper and Lower California"(London, 1839), states that the population of Upper California in 1831was a little over 23, 000; of these 18, 683 were Indians. It was for theconversion of these Indians that the missions were first established;for the bettering of their condition--mental, moral and physical--thatthey were trained in the useful and industrial arts. That they laborednot in vain is evident. In less than fifty years from the day of itsfoundation the Mission of San Francisco Dolores--that is in 1825--issaid to have possessed 76, 000 head of cattle; 950 tame horses; 2, 000breeding mares; 84 stud of choice breed; 820 mules; 79, 000 sheep; 2, 000hogs; 456 yoke of working oxen; 18, 000 bushels of wheat and barley;besides $35, 000 in merchandise and $25, 000 in specie. 

That was, indeed, the golden age of the California missions; everybodywas prosperous and proportionately happy. In 1826 the Mission of Soledadowned more than 36, 000 head of cattle, and a larger number of horses andmares than any other mission in the country. These animals increased sorapidly that they were given away in order to preserve the pasturage forcattle and sheep. In 1822 the Spanish power in Mexico was overthrown; in1824 a republican constitution was established. California, not thenhaving a population sufficient to admit it as one of the Federal States, was made a territory, and as such had a representative in the MexicanCongress; but he was not allowed a vote on any question, though he satin the assembly and shared in the debates. 

In 1826 the Federal Government began to meddle with the affairs of thefriars. The Indians "who had good characters, and were considered ableto maintain themselves, from having been taught the art of agricultureor some trade, " were manumitted; portions of land were allotted to them, and the whole country was divided into parishes, under thesuperintendence of curates. The zealous missionaries were no longer toreceive a salary--four hundred dollars a year had formerly been paidthem out of the national exchequer for developing the resources of theState. Everybody and everything was now supposed to be self-sustaining, and was left to take care of itself. It was a dream--and a bad one!

[Illustration: Lone Mountain, 1856]

Within one year the Indians went to the dogs. They were cheated out oftheir small possessions and were driven to beggary or plunder. TheFathers were implored to take charge again of their helpless flock. Meanwhile the Pious Fund of California had run dry, as its revenues hadbeen diverted into alien channels. The good friars resumed theiroffices. Once more the missions were prosperous, but for a time only. Itwas the beginning of the end. Year after year acts were passed in theMexican Congress so hampering the friars in their labors that they wereat last crippled and helpless. The year 1840 was specially disastrous;and in 1845 the Franciscans the pioneer settlers and civilizers ofCalifornia, were completely denuded of both power and property. 

In that year a number of the missions were sold by public auction. TheIndian converts, formerly attached to some of the missions, but nowdemoralized and wandering idly and miserably over the country, wereordered to return within a month to the few remaining missions, _orthose also would be sold_. The Indians, having had enough of legislationand knowing the white man pretty well by this time, no doubt having hadenough of him, returned not, and their missions were disposed of. Thenthe remaining missions were rented and the remnants divided into threeparts: one kindly bestowed upon the missionaries, who were the foundersand rightful owners of the missions; one upon the converted Indians, whoseem to have vanished into thin air; one, the last, was supposed to beconverted into a new Pious Fund of California for the further educationand evangelization of the masses--whoever they might be. The generalgovernment had long been in financial distress, and had oftenborrowed--to put it mildly--from the friars in their more prosperousdays. In 1831 the Mexican Congress owed the missions of California$450, 000 of borrowed money; and in 1845 it left those missionariesabsolutely penniless. 

Let me not harp longer upon this theme, but end with a quotation fromthe pages of a non-Catholic historian. Referring to the Franciscans andtheir mission work on the Pacific coast, Josiah Joyce, assistantprofessor of philosophy in Harvard College, says:[1]

"No one can question their motives, nor may one doubt that theirintentions were not only formally pious but truly humane. For the morefatal diseases that so-called civilization introduced among the Indians, only the soldiers and colonists of the presidios and pueblos were toblame; and the Fathers, well knowing the evil results of a mixedpopulation, did their best to prevent these consequences, but in vain;since the neighborhood of a presidio was often necessary for the safetyof a mission, and the introduction of a white colonist was an importantpart of the intentions of the home government. But, after all, upon thiswhole toil of the missions, considered in itself, one looks back withregret, as upon one of the most devout and praiseworthy of mortalefforts; and, in view of its avowed intentions, one of the most completeand fruitless of human failures. The missions have meant, for modernAmerican California, little more than a memory, which now indeed islighted up by poetical legends of many sorts. But the chief significanceof the missions is simply that they first began the colonization ofCalifornia. "

The old mission church as I knew it four and forty years ago is stillstanding and still an object of pious interest. The first families ofthe faithful lie under its eaves in their long and peaceful sleep, happily unmindful of the great changes that have come over the spirit ofall our dreams. The old adobes have returned to dust, even as the handsof those who fashioned them more than a century ago. Very modern houseshave crowded upon the old church and churchyard, and they seem to havebecome the merest shadows of their former selves; while the roof-treeof the new church soars into space, and its wide walls--out of allproportion with the Dolores of departed days--are but emblematic of thenew spirit of the age. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: In "California, " 1886, --one of the admirable AmericanCommonwealths Series. ]

IX. 

SOCIAL SAN FRANCISCO

Social San Francisco during the early Fifties seems to have been aconglomeration of unexpected externals and surprising interiors. It washeterogeneous to the last degree. It was hail-fellow-well-met, with areservation; it asked no questions for conscience's sake; it would nothave been safe to do so. There were too many pasts in the first familiesand too many possible futures to permit one to cast a shadow upon theother. And after all is said, if sins may be forgiven and atoned for, why should the memory of a shady past imperil the happiness andprosperity of the future? All futures should be hopeful; they were"promise-crammed" in that healthy and hearty city by the sea. 

It was impossible, not to say impolite, to inquire into your neighbors'antecedents. It was currently believed that the mines were filled withbroken-down "divines, " as if it were but a step from the pulpit to thepickaxe. As for one's family, it was far better off in the old home solong as the salary of a servant was seventy dollars a month, fresh eggsa dollar and a quarter a dozen, turkeys ten dollars apiece, and coalfifty dollars a ton. 

In 1854 and 1855 San Francisco had a monthly magazine that any city orstate might have been proud of; this was _The Pioneer_, edited by theRev. Ferdinand C. Ewer. In 1851, a lady, the wife of a physician, wentwith her husband into the mines and settled at Rich Bar and Indian Bar, two neighboring camps on the north fork of the Feather River. There werebut three or four other women in that part of the country, and one ofthese died. This lady wrote frequent and lengthy descriptive letters toa sister in New England, and these letters were afterward publishedserially in _The Pioneer_. They picture life as a highly-accomplishedwoman knew it in the camps and among the people whom Bret Harte hasimmortalized. She called herself "Dame Shirley, " and the "ShirleyLetters" in _The Pioneer_ are the most picturesque, vivid, and valuablerecord of life in a California mining camp that I know of. The wonder isthat they have never been collected and published in book form; for theyhave become a part of the history of the development of the State. 

The life of a later period in San Francisco and Monterey has beenfaithfully depicted by another hand. The life that was a mixture ofGringo and diluted Castilian--a life that smacked of the presidio andthe hacienda, --that was a tale worth telling; and no one has told it sofreely, so fully or so well as Gertrude Franklin Atherton. 

"Dame Shirley" was Mrs. L. A. C. Clapp. When her husband died she went toSan Francisco and became a teacher in the Union Street public school. Itwas this admirable lady who made literature my first love; and to hertender mercies I confided my maiden efforts in the art of composition. She readily forgave me then, and was the very first to offer meencouragement; and from that hour to this she has been my faithfulfriend and unfailing correspondent. 

South Park and Rincon Hill! Do the native sons of the golden West everrecall those names and think what dignity they once conferred upon thefavored few who basked in the sunshine of their prosperity? South Park, with its line of omnibuses running across the city to North Beach; itslong, narrow oval, filled with dusty foliage and offering a very weakapology for a park; its two rows of houses with, a formal air, alllooking very much alike, and all evidently feeling their importance. There were young people's "parties" in those days, and the height offelicity was to be invited to them. As a height o'ertops a hollow, soRincon Hill looked down upon South Park. There was more elbow-room onthe breezy height; not that the height was so high or so broad, but it_was_ breezy; and there was room for the breeze to blow over gardensthat spread about the detached houses their wealth of color and perfume. 

How are the mighty fallen! The Hill, of course, had the farthest tofall. South Parkites merely moved out: they went to another and a betterplace. There was a decline in respectability and the rent-roll, and noone thinks of South Park now, --at least no one speaks of it above awhisper. As for the Hill, the Hillites hung on through everything; thewaves of commerce washed all about it and began gnawing at its base; adeep gully was cut through it, and there a great tide of traffic ebbedand flowed all day. At night it was dangerous to pass that way without arevolver in one's hand; for that city is not a city in the barbarousSouth Seas, whither preachers of the Gospel of peace are sent; but is acivilized city and proportionately unsafe. 

A cross-street was lowered a little, and it leaped the chasm in an agonyof wood and iron, the most unlovely object in a city that is made up ofall unloveliness. The gutting of this Hill cost the city the fortunes ofseveral contractors, and it ruined the Hill forever. There is nothingleft to be done now but to cast it into the midst of the sea. I hadsported on the green with the goats of goatland ere ever the statelymansion had been dreamed of; and it was my fate to set up my tabernacleone day in the ruins of a house that even then stood upon the order ofits going, --it did go impulsively down into that "most unkindest cut, "the Second Street chasm. Even the place that once knew it has followedafter. 

The ruin I lived in had been a banker's Gothic home. When Rincon Hillwas spoiled by bloodless speculators, he abandoned it and took up hisabode in another city. A tenant was left to mourn there. Every summerthe wild winds shook that forlorn ruin to its foundations. Every winterthe rains beat upon it and drove through and through it, and underminedit, and made a mush of the rock and soil about it; and later portions ofthat real estate deposited themselves, pudding-fashion, in the yawningabyss below. 

I sat within, patiently awaiting the day of doom; for well I knew thatmy hour must come. I could not remain suspended in midair for any lengthof time: the fall of the house at the northwest corner of Harrison andSecond Streets must mark my fall. While I was biding my time, there cameto me a lean, lithe stranger. I knew him for a poet by his unshorn locksand his luminous eyes, the pallor of his face and his exquisitelysensitive hands. As he looked about my eyrie with aesthetic glance, almost his first words were: "What a background for a novel!" He seemedto relish it all--the impending crag that might topple any day or hour;the modest side door that had become my front door because the rest ofthe building was gone; the ivy-roofed, geranium-walled conservatorywherein I slept like a Babe in the Wood, but in densest solitude andwith never a robin to cover me. 

He liked the crumbling estate, and even as much of it as had gone downinto the depths forever. He liked the sagging and sighing cypresses, with their roots in the air, that hung upon and clung upon the ruggededge of the remainder. He liked the shaky stairway that led to it (whenit was not out of gear), and all that was irrelative and irrelevant;what might have been irritating to another was to him singularlyappealing and engaging; for he was a poet and a romancer, and his namewas Robert Louis Stevenson. He used to come to that eyrie on Rincon Hillto chat and to dream; he called it "the most San Francisco-ey part ofSan Francisco, " and so it was. It was the beginning and the end of thefirst period of social development on the Pacific coast. There is apicture of it, or of the South Park part of it, in Gertrude Atherton'sstory, "The Californians. " The little glimpse that Louis Stevenson hadof it in its decay gave him a few realistic pages for _The Wrecker_. 

I have referred to the surprising interiors of the city in the Fifties. What I meant was this: there was not an alley so miserable and so muddybut somewhere in it there was pretty sure to be a cottage as demure inoutward appearance as modesty itself. Nothing could be more unassuming:it had not even the air of genteel poverty. I think such an air was notto be thought of in those days: gentility kept very much to itself. Asfor poverty, it was a game that any one might play at any moment, andmost had played at it. 

This cottage stood there--I think I will say _sat_ there, it looked soperfectly resigned, --and no doubt commanded a rent quite out ofproportion to its size. It had its shaky veranda and its French windows, and was lined with canvas; for there was not a trowel full of plaster init. The ceiling bellied and flapped like an awning when the wind soughedthrough the clapboards; and the walls sometimes visibly heaved a sigh;but they were covered with panelled paper quite palatial in texture anddesign, and that is one thing that made those interiors surprising. 

At the windows the voluminous lace draperies were almost overpowering. Satin lambrequins were festooned with colossal cord and tassels ofbullion. A plate-glass mirror as wide as the mantel reflected theFlorentine gilt carving of its own elaborate frame. There were bronzeson the mantel, and tall vases of Sévres, and statuettes of bisquebrilliantly tinted. At the two sides of the mantel stood pedestals ofItalian marble surmounted by urns of the most graceful and elegantproportions, and profusely ornamented with sculptured fruits andflowers. There was the old-fashioned square piano in its carven case, and cabinets from China or East India; also a lacquered Japanese screen, marble-topped tables of filigreed teek, brackets of inlaid ebony. Curiosthere were galore. Some paintings there were, and these rocked softlyupon the gently-heaving walls. As for the velvet carpet, it was a bed ofgigantic roses that might easily put to the blush the prime of summer ina queen's garden. 

I well remember another home in San Francisco, one that possessed for methe strongest attraction. It was bosomed in the sandhills south ofMarket Street, --I know not between what streets, for they had all beenblurred or quite obliterated by drifts of sifting sand. It was a smallhouse fenced about; but the fence was for the most part buried undersand, and looked as if it were a rampart erected for the defense of thisisolated cot. Some few hardy flowers had been planted there, but theywere knee-deep in sand, and their petals were full of grit. One usuallyblew into that house with a pinch of sand, but how good it was to bethere!

Within those walls there was the unmistakable evidence of the femininetouch, the aesthetic influence that refines and beautifies everything. It was not difficult to idealize in that atmosphere. It was the home ofa lady who chose to conceal her identity, though her pen-name was ahousehold word from one end of the coast to the other. She was a starcontributor to the weekly columns of the _Golden Era, _ a periodical weall subscribed for and were immensely proud of. It was unique in itsway. Of late years I have found no literary journal to compare with itat its best. It introduced Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Prentice Mulford, Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith, and many others, to their first circle ofadmirers. In the large mail-box at its threshold--a threshold I darednot cross for awe of it--I dropped my earliest efforts in verse, andthen ran for fear of being caught in the act. 

Imagine the joy of a lad whose ambition was to write something worthprinting, and whose wildest dream was to be named some day with thosewho had won their laurels in the field of letters, --imagine his joy atbeing petted in the sanctum of one who was in his worshipful eyes thegreatest lady in the land! About her were the trophies of her triumph, though she was personally known to few. Each post brought her tributefrom the grateful hearts of her readers afar off in the mountain miningcamps, and perhaps from beyond the Rockies; or, it may have been, fromthe unsuspecting admirer who lived just beyond the first sandhill. Thiswas another surprising interior. There was plain living and highthinking in the midst of a wilderness that was, to say the least, uninviting; the windows rattled and the sand peppered them. Without wasthe abomination of desolation; but within the desert blossomed as therose. 

There were other homes as homely as the one I preferred--for there wassand enough to go round. It went round and round, as God probablyintended it should, until a city sat upon it and kept it quiet. Some ofthese homes were perched upon solitary hilltops, and were lost to sightwhen the fog came in from the sea; and some were crowded into the thickof the town, with all sorts of queer people for neighbors. You could, had you chosen to, look out of a back window into a hollow square fullof cats and rats and tin cans; and upon the three sides of thequadrangle which you were facing, you might have seen, unblushinglyrevealed, all the mysteries and miseries of Europe, Asia, Africa, andOceanica; for they were all of them represented by delegates. 

Of course there were handsome residences (not so very many of them asyet), where there was fine art--some of the finest. But often this artwas to be found in the saloons, and the subjects chosen would hardlyfind entertainment elsewhere. The furnishing of the houses was withinthe bounds of good taste. Monumental marbles were not erected by thehearth-side; the window drapery was diaphanous rather than dense anddowdy. The markets of San Francisco were much to blame for theflashiness of the domestic interior: they were stocked with the gaudiestfixtures and textures, and in the inspection of them the eye wasbewildered and the taste demoralized. 

Harmony survived the inharmonious, and it prevailed in the homes of thebetter classes, as it was bound to do; for refinement had set its sealthere, and you can not counterfeit the seal of refinement. But I aminclined to think that in the Fifties there was a natural tendency tooverdress, to over-decorate, to overdo almost everything. Indeed the daywas demonstrative; if the now celebrated climate had not yet beenelaborately advertised, no doubt there was something hi it singularlybracing. The elixir of it got into the blood and the brain, and perhapsthe bones as well. The old felt younger than they did when they left"the States, "--the territory from the Rockies to the Atlantic Ocean wascommonly known as "the States. " The middle-aged renewed their youth, andyouth was wild with an exuberance of health and hope and happiness thatseemed to give promise of immortality. 

No wonder that it was thought an honor to be known as the first whitechild born in San Francisco--I'd think it such myself, --and I'm proud tostate that all three claimants are my personal friends. 

X. 

HAPPY VALLEY

How well I remember it--the Happy Valley of the days of old! It laybetween California Street and Rincon Point; was bounded on the east bythe Harbor of San Francisco, and on the west by the mission peaks. Inever knew just why it was called _happy_; I never saw any wildly-happyinhabitants singing or dancing for joy on its sometimes ratherindefinite street corners. If there is happiness in sand, then, happily, it was sandy. You might have climbed knee-deep up some parts of it andslid down on the other side; you could have played at "hide-and-seek"among its shifting undulations. From what is now known as Nob Hill youcould have looked across it to the heights of Rincon Point--and, perchance, have looked in vain for happiness. Yet who or what ishappiness? A flying nymph whose airy steps even the sand can not stayfor long. 

Down through this Happy Valley ran Market Street, a bias cut across thecity that was to be. Market Street is about all that saved that cityfrom making a checker-board of its ground-plan. Market Street flew offat a tangent and set all the south portion of the town at an angle thatis rather a relief than anything else that I know of. Who wants to go onforever up one street and down another, and then across town at rightangles, as if life were a treadmill and there were no hope of changeuntil the great change comes?

Happy Valley! I remember one cool twilight when a "prairie schooner, "that was time-worn and weather-beaten, drifted down Montgomery Streetfrom Market Street, and rounded the corner of Sutter Street, where ithove to. You know the "prairie schooner" was the old-time emigrant wagonthat was forever crossing the plains in Forty-nine and the earlyFifties. It was scow-built, hooded from end to end, freighted with goodsand chattels; and therein the whole family lived and moved and had itsbeing during the long voyage to the Pacific Coast. 

On this twilight evening the captain of the schooner, assisted by aportion of his crew, deliberately took down part of the fence whichenclosed a sand-lot bounded by Montgomery, Sutter and Post Streets;driving into the centre of the lot; the horses--four jaded beasts--wereturned loose, and soon a camp-fire was lighted and the entire emigrantfamily gathered about it to partake of the evening meal. On this lot nowstands the Lick House and the Masonic Hall--undreamed of in those days. No one seemed in the least surprised to find in the very heart of thecity a scene such as one might naturally look for in the heart of theRocky Mountains and the wilds of the great desert, or the heights of theHumboldt. No doubt they thought it a Happy Valley; and well they might, for they had reached their journey's end. 

A stone's throw from that twilight camp, on the south side of MarketStreet, stood old St. Patrick's Church. It was a most unpretendingstructure, and was quite overshadowed by the R. C. Orphan Asylum close athand. Both were backed by sandhills; and both, together with the sand, have been spirited away. The Palace and Grand Hotels now stand on thespot. The original St. Patrick's still exists; and, after one or twotransportations, has come to a final halt near the Catholic cemeteryunder the shadow of Lone Mountain. It must be ever dear to me, forwithin its modest rectory I met the first Catholic clergyman I everbecame acquainted with; and within it I grew familiar with the officesof the Church; though I was instructed by the Rev. Father Accolti, S. J. , at old St. Ignatius', on Market Street; and by him baptized at the St. Mary's Cathedral, on the corner of California and Dupont Streets, nowthe church of the Paulist Fathers. I have referred to dear old St. Patrick's--which was dedicated on the first Sunday in September, 1851--in the story of my conversion, a little bit of autobiographyentitled "A Troubled Heart, and How It was Comforted at Last. " The latePeter H. Burnett, first Governor of California, was my godfather. 

In 1855 St. Mary's Cathedral was the handsomest house of worship in thecity. For the most part, the churches of all denominations were of theplainest, not to say cheapest, order of architecture. As a youth, I satin the family pew in the First Presbyterian Church, situated on StocktonStreet, near Broadway. Well I remember my father, with others of thecongregation--all members of the Vigilance Committee, --at the sound ofthe alarm-bell, rising in the midst of the sermon and striding out ofthe house to take arms in defence of law and order. 

Perhaps the saddest sights in those early days were the neglectedcemeteries. There was one at North Beach, where before 1850 there wereeight hundred and forty interments. It was on the slope of TelegraphHill. The place was neglected; a street had been cut through it, and onthe banks of this street we could, at intervals, see the ends of coffinsprotruding. Some were broken and falling apart; some were still sound. It was a gruesome sight. 

There were a few Russian graves on Russian Hill, a forlorn spot in thosedays; but perhaps the forlornest of all was Yerba Buena cemetery, whereprevious to 1854 four thousand and five hundred bodies had been buried. It was half-way between Happy Valley and the Mission Dolores. The sandthere was tossed in hillocks like the waves of a sandy sea. There thechaparral grew thickest; and there the scrub-oaks shrugged theirshoulders and turned their backs to the wind, and grew all lopsided, with leafage as dense as moss. 

No fence enclosed this weird spot. The sand sifted into it and throughit and out on the other, side; it made graves and uncovered them; it hadever a new surprise for us. We boys haunted it in ghoulish pairs, andwhispered to each other as we found one more coffin coming to thesurface, or searched in vain for the one we had seen the week before; ithad been mercifully reburied by the winds. There were rude headboards, painted in fading colors; and beneath them lay the dead of all nations, soon to be nameless. By and by they were all carried hence; and thosethat were far away, watching and waiting for the loved and absentadventurers, watched and waited in vain. A change come o'er the spiritof the place. The site is now marked by the New City Hall--in allprobability the most costly architectural monstrosity on this continent. 

"From grave to gay" is but a step; "from lively to severe, " another, --Iknow not which of the two is longer. It was literally from grave to gaywhen the old San Franciscans used to wade through the sandy margin ofYerba Buena cemetery in search of pleasure at Russ' Garden on themission road. It flourished in the early Fifties--this very Germangarden, the pride and property of Mr. Christian Russ. It was a littlebit of the Fatherland, transported as if by magic and set down among thehillocks toward the Mission Dolores. Well I remember being taken thereat intervals, to find little tables in artificial bowers, where satwhole families as sedate, or merry, and as much at ease as if they werein their own homes. They would spend Sunday there, after Mass. There wasalways something to be seen, to be listened to, to be done. Meals wereserved at all hours, and beer at all minutes; and the program containeda long list of attractions, --enough to keep one interested till ten oreleven o'clock at night. 

I can remember how scanty the foliage was--it resembled a little thetoy-villages that are made in the Tyrol, having each of them a handfulof impossible trees that breathe not balsam, but paint. I remember thehigh wind that blew in bravely from the sea; the pavilion that was awonder-world of never-failing attractiveness; and how on a certainoccasion I watched with breathless anxiety and dumb amazement a man, who seemed to have discarded every garment common to the race, wheel awheelbarrow with a grooved wheel up a tight rope stretched from theground to the outer peak of the pavilion; and all the time there was aman in the wheelbarrow who seemed paralyzed with fright, --as no doubt hewas. The man who wheeled the barrow was the world-famous Blondin. 

[Illustration: Russ Gardens, 1856]

Another sylvan retreat was known as "The Willows. " There were somewillows there, but I fear they were numbered; and there was an _alfresco_ theatre such as one sees in the Champs-Elysées; indeed, theplace had quite a Frenchy atmosphere, and was not at all German, as wasRuss' Garden. French singers sang French songs upon the stage--it wasnot much larger than a sounding-board. 

An air of gaiety prevailed; for I imagine the majority of the _habitués_were from the French Quarter of the city. Of course there were birds andbeasts, and cages populous with monkeys; and there was an emeu--theweird bird that can not fly, the Australian cassowary. This birdinspired Bret Harte to song, and in his early days he wrote "The Balladof the Emeu";

 O say, have you seen at the willows so green, So charming and rurally true, A singular bird, with the manner absurd, Which they call the Australian emeu? Have you Ever seen this Australian emeu?

I fear the poet was moved to sarcasm when he sang of "the willows sogreen, so charming and rurally true. " Surely they were greener than anyother trees we had in town; for we had almost none, save a few darkevergreens. Well, the place was charming in its way, and as rurally trueas anything could be expected to be on that peninsula in its nativewilderness. The Willows and Russ' Garden had their day, and it was ajolly day. They were good for the people--those rural resorts; they wererest for the weary, refreshment for the hungry and thirsty--and theyhave gone; even their very sites are now obliterated, and the newgeneration has perhaps never even heard of them. 

How we wondered at and gloried in the Oriental Hotel! It was the queenof Western hostelries, and stood at the corner of Battery and BushStreets. And the Tehama House, so famous in its day! It was LieutenantG. H. Derby, better known in letters as John Phoenix, and Squibob--namesdelightfully associated with the early history of California, --it wasthis Lieutenant Derby, one of the first and best of Western humorists, who added interest to the hotel by writing "A Legend of the TehamaHouse. " It begins, chapter first:

"It was evening at the Tehama. The apothecary, whose shop formed thesoutheastern corner of that edifice, had lighted his lamps, which, shining through those large glass bottles in the window, filled withred and blue liquors--once supposed by this author, when young andinnocent, to be medicines of the most potent description, --lit up thefaces of the passers-by with an unearthly glare, and exaggerated thegeneral redness and blueness of their noses. "

The third and last chapter concludes with these words: "The Tehama Houseis still there. " The laughter-making and laughter-loving Phoenix haslong since gone to his reward. Of the Oriental Hotel scarcely atradition remains. The Tehama House--what there is left of it--has beenspirited to the north side of Broadway within a stone's-throw of thecity and county jail. The cliffs of Telegraph Hill browbeat it. It is, one might say, the last of its race. 

Another hospice--if it _was_ a hospice--I remember. It stood on thecorner of Clay and Sansome Streets, and was a very ordinary building, erected over the hulk of a ship that had been stranded there in the daysof Forty-nine. I saw the building torn down and the bones of the hulkdisinterred years after the water lots that had been filled in forseveral squares, between it and the old harbor, were covered withsubstantial buildings. When that bark was buoyant it had weathered CapeHorn with a small army of argonauts. They had gone their way to dustydeath; she had buried her nose on the water-front and had beensmothered to death in the mire. Docks, streets, grew up around her; abuilding had snuffed her out of sight and mind. The old building gaveplace to a new one; the bark was resurrected in order to lay a solidfoundation for the new block that was to be. In the hold of thisforgotten bark was discovered a forgotten case of champagne. It had beensunk in mud and ooze for years. When the bottles were opened the corksrefused to pop, and nobody dared to touch the "bilge" that was within. All this was on the happy hem of Happy Valley--and still I was nothappy. 

XI. 

THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE

It was May 14, 1856. I chanced to be standing at the northwest corner ofWashington and Montgomery Streets, watching the world go by. It was aqueer world: very much mixed, not a little fantastic in manner andcostume; just the kind of world to delight a boy, and no doubt I wasdelighted. 

"Bang!" It was a pistol-shot, and very near me--not thirty feet away. Iturned and saw a man stagger and fall to the pavement. Then the streetsbegan to grow dark with people hurrying toward the scene of the tragedy. I fled in fright; I had had my fill of horrors. The pistol-shot wasfamiliar enough: it punctuated the hours of day and night out yonder. But I had never witnessed a murder, and this was evidently one. 

When I reached home I was dazed. On the witness stand, under oath, Icould have told nothing; but very shortly the whole town was aware thatJames King--known as James King of William (i. E. , William King was hisfather)--the editor of the _Evening Bulletin_ had been shot in coldblood by James Casey, a supervisor, the editor of a local journal, anunprincipled politician, an ex-convict, and a man whose past had beenexposed and his present publicly denounced in the editorial columns ofthe _Bulletin_. 

This climax precipitated a general movement toward social and politicalreform in San Francisco. It was James P. Casey, a graduate of the NewYork state-prison at Sing Sing, who stuffed a ballot-box with ticketsbearing his own name upon them as candidate for supervisor, and as aresult of this stuffing declared himself elected. Casey was hurried offto jail by his friends, lest the outraged populace should lynch him onthe spot. A mob gathered at the jail. The mayor of the city haranguedthe people in favor of law and order. They jeered him and remained theremost of the night. One leading spirit might have roused the masses toriot; but the hour was not yet ripe. 

In 1851 a Vigilance Committee had endeavored to purge the politics ofthe town and rid it of the criminals who had foisted themselves intooffice. Some ex-members of this committee became active members of thecommittee of 1856. Chief among them was William T. Coleman, a namedeservedly honored in the annals of San Francisco. 

James King of William was shot on Tuesday, the 14th of May. He died onthe following Monday. That fatal shot was the turning-point in thehistory of the metropolis of the Pacific. A meeting of the citizens wasimmediately called; an executive committee was appointed; the work oforganization was distributed among the sub-committees. With amazingrapidity three thousand citizens were armed, drilled, and established intemporary armories; ample means were subscribed to cover all expenses. Several companies of militia disbanded rather than run the risk of beingcalled into service against the Vigilantis; they then joined thecommittee, armed with their own muskets. Arms were obtained from everyquarter, and soon there was an ample supply. A building on SacramentoStreet, below Battery, was secured and made headquarters of thecommittee. A kind of fortification built of potato sacks filled withsand was erected in front of it. It was known as Fort Gunny Bags. Thissecured an open space before the building. The fort was patrolled bysentinels night and day; military rule was strictly observed. 

All things having been arranged silently, secretly, decently and inorder--the members of the committee were under oath as well as underarms--they decided to take matters into their own hands; and in order todo this Casey must be removed from jail--peaceably if possible, forciblyif necessary--and given a lodging and a trial at Fort Gunny Bags. 

On Sunday morning, the 19th of May, chancing be under the weather, andconsequently at home sitting by a window, I saw people flocking past thehouse and hastening toward the jail. We were then living on Broadway, below Montgomery Street; the jail was on Broadway, a square or twofarther up the street; between us was a shoulder of Telegraph Hill notyet cut away, though it had been blasted out of shape and an attempt hadbeen made to tunnel it. The young Californian of that day waskeen-scented and lost no opportunity of seeing whatever was to be seen. Forgetting my distemper, I grabbed my cap and joined the expectantthrongs. We went over the heights of the hill like a flock of goats: wewere used to climbing. On the other edge of the cliff, where we seemedalmost to overhang the jail and the street in front of it, we paused andcaught our breath. What a sight it was! It seems that on Saturdaytwenty-four companies of Vigilantis were ordered to meet at theirrespective armories, in various parts of the city, at nine o'clock onSunday morning. Orders were given to each captain to take up a certainposition near the jail. The jail was surrounded: no one could approachit, no one escape from it, without leave of the commanders of thecommittee. 

The streets glistened with bayonets. It was as if the city were in astate of siege; so indeed it was. The companies marched silently, ominously, without music or murmur, to their respective stations. Citizens--non-combatants but all sympathizers--flocked in and coveredthe housetops and the heights in the vicinity. A hollow square wasformed before the jail; an artillery company with a huge brass cannonhalted near it; the cannon was placed directly in front of the jail andtrained upon the gates. I remember how impressive the scene was: thegrim files of infantry; the gleaming brass of the cannon; one closedcarriage within the hollow square; the awful stillness that brooded overall. 

[Illustration: Certificate of Membership, Vigilance Committee, 1856]

Two Vigilance officials went to the door of the jail and informedSheriff Scannell that they had come to take Casey with them. Resistancewas now useless; the door of the jail was thrown open to them and theyentered. At their approach Casey begged leave to speak for ten minutesin his own defense, --he evidently expected to be executed on theinstant. He was assured that he should have a fair trial, and that histestimony should be deliberately weighed in the balance. This act of anoutraged and disgusted people was one of the calmest, coolest, wisest, most deliberate on record. Law, order, and justice were at bay. Casey, under guard, walked quietly to the carriage and entered it. In the jailat the time was Charles Cora, a man who had murdered United StatesMarshal Richardson. He had been tried once; but then the jurydisagreed--as they nearly always agreed to in those barbarous days. Hanging was almost out of the question. Cora was invited to enter thecarriage with Casey, and the two were driven under military escort toFort Gunny Bags. 

On the day following, Monday, James King of William died. On TuesdayCasey was tried by the executive committee. John S. Hittell, thehistorian of San Francisco, says:

"No person was present at the trial save the accused, the members of theVigilance Committee, and witnesses. The testimony was given under oath, though there was no lawful authority for its administration. Hearsaytestimony was excluded; the general rules of evidence observed in thecourts were adopted: the accused heard all the witnesses, cross-examinedthose against him, summoned such as he wanted in his favor, had anattorney to assist him, and was permitted to make an argument by himselfor his attorney, in his own defence. "

Casey and Cora were both convicted: their guilt was beyond the shadow ofa doubt. 

On Wednesday James King of William was laid to rest at Lone Mountain. The whole city was draped in mourning; all business was suspended; thecitizens lined the streets through which the feral cortége proceeded, orfollowed it until it seemed interminable. 

As that procession passed up Montgomery Street and crossed SacramentoStreet, those who were walking or driving in it looked down the latterstreet and saw, two squares below, the lifeless bodies of James P. Caseyand Charles Cora dangling by the neck from two second-story windows ofthe headquarters of the Vigilance Committee. Justice was enthroned atlast. 

"The Vigilance Committees of San Francisco in 1851 and 1856, " as Hittellsays, "were in many important respects unlike any other extra-judicialmovement to administer justice. They were not common mobs: they wereorganized for weeks or months of labor, deliberate in their movements, careful to keep records of their proceedings, strictly attentive to therules of evidence and the penalties for crime accepted by civilizednations; confident of their power, and of their justification by publicopinion; and not afraid of taking the public responsibility of theiracts. "

The committee of 1856 was never formally dissolved. The reformation ithad accomplished rendered it inactive. Some of the worst criminals inCalifornia had been officials. A thousand homicides had been committedin the city between 1849 and 1856, and there were but seven executionsin seven years. 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. , the author of "Two Years before the Mast, " whospent the greater portion of two years--1834-35--on the coast ofCalifornia, and who revisited the Pacific coast in 1859, observes:

"And now the most quiet and well-governed city in the United States isSan Francisco. But it has been through its seasons of heaven-defyingcrime and violence and blood; from which it was rescued and handed backto soberness and morality and good government by that peculiar inventionof Anglo-Saxon republican America--the solemn, awe-inspiring VigilanceCommittee of the most grave and respectable citizens; the last resort ofthe thinking and the good, taken only when vice, fraud, and ruffianismhad entrenched themselves behind the forms of law, suffrage, andballot. "

San Francisco was undoubtedly the most disreputable city in the Union. It is now one of the most reputable. As I think of it to-day there is noshudder in the thought. And yet I saw James King of William shot; I sawCasey and Cora transferred from the jail to the headquarters of theVigilance Committee; and I saw them hanging as the body of James King ofWilliam was being borne by a whole city, bowed in grief, to his lastresting-place. And my venerated father was a member of thatnever-to-be-forgotten Vigilance Committee of San Francisco in the yearof Our Lord eighteen hundred and fifty-six. 

XII. 

THE SURVIVOR'S STORY

It is not much of a story. It is only the mild adventure of a boy atsea; and of a small, sad boy at that. This boy had an elder brother whowas ill; and the physicians in consultation had decided that a longsea-voyage was his only hope, and that even in this case the hope was avery faint one. 

There was a ship at anchor in the harbor of San Francisco, --a veryfamous clipper, one of those sailors of the sea known as OceanGreyhounds. She was built for speed, and her record was a brilliant one;under the guidance of her daring captain, she had again and again provedherself worthy of her name. She was called the _Flying Cloud_. Hercabins were luxuriously furnished; for in those days seafarers wereoftener blown about the world by the four winds of heaven than propelledby steam. Yet when the _Flying Cloud_, one January day, tripped anchorand set sail, there were but three strangers on the quarter-deck--amiddle-aged gentleman in search of health, the invalid brother, in hiseighteenth year, and the small, sad boy. 

[Illustration: West from Black Point, 1856]

The captain's wife, a lady of Salem who had followed him from sea tosea for many a year, was the joy and salvation of that forlorn littlecompany. How forlorn it was only the survivor knows, and he knows wellenough. Forty years have scarcely dimmed the memory of it. Through allthe wear and tear of time the remembrance of that voyage has atintervals haunted him: the length of it, the weariness of it, and thealmost unbroken monotony stretching through the ninety odd days thatdawned and darkened between San Francisco and New York; the solitarysail that was blown on and on, and becalmed and buffeted between theblue waste of waters and the blue waste of sky; the lonesomeness of itall--no land, no lights flashing across the sea in glad assurance; nopassing ships to hail us with faint-voiced "Ahoy!"--only theever-tossing waves, the trailing sea-gardens, the tireless birds of theair and the monsters of the deep. 

Ah, well-a-day! There was a solemn and hushed circle listening to familyprayers that morning, --the morning of the 4th of January. The father'svoice trembled as he opened the Bible and read from that beautifulpsalm:

"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in greatwaters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. ForHe commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the wavesthereof. They mount up to the heaven; they go down again to the depths;their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro andstagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cryunto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of theirdistresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof arestill. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth themunto their desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for Hisgoodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men!"

The small, sad boy looked smaller and sadder than ever as he stood onthe deck of the _Flying Cloud_ and waved his last farewell. He tried hisbest to be manly and to swallow the heart that was leaping in histhroat, and at the earliest possible moment he flew to his journal andmade his first entry there. He was going to keep a journal because hisbrother kept one, and because it was the proper thing to keep a journalat sea--no ship is complete without its log, you know; and, moreover, Ithink it was a custom in that family to keep a journal; for it was, moreor less, a journalistic family. 

Now we are nearing the anniversary of that boy's journal: it runsthrough January, February and March; it is more than forty years oldthis minute. And because it is a boy's journal, and the boy was smalland sad, I'm going to peep into it and fish out a line or two. With aneffort he made this entry:

"CLIPPER SHIP, FLYING CLOUD, "January 4, 1857. 

"I watched them till we were out of sight of them, and then began tolook about to see what I could see. It begins to get rough. I tried tosee home, but I could not. The pilot says he will take a letter ashorefor us. Now I will go to bed. "

Then he cried unto the Lord in his trouble with a heart as heavy aslead. 

"JAN. 5. --The day rather rough, with little squalls of rain. We arepassing the Farallone Islands, but I feel too bad to sketch them. I gethomesick when I think of the dear ones I left behind me. I hope I maysee them all in this world again. "

That was the gray beginning of a voyage that had very little color init. The coast-line sank apace; the gray rocks--the Farallones, the hauntof the crying gull--dissolved in the gray mist. The hours were allalike: all dismal and slow-footed. 

"I don't feel very well to-day, " said the small, sad boy, quiteplaintively. On the 6th he brightens and begins to take notice. Historywould have less to fasten on were there not some such entries as this:

"A list of our live-stock: 17 pigs; 12 dozen hens and roosters; 3turkeys; 1 gobbler; a cockatoo and a wild-cat. We have a fair breeze, and carry 26 sails. 

"JAN. 7. --The day is calm. I began to read 'Uncle Tom's Cabin. ' I likeit. The captain's wife was going to train the wild-cat when it bither--but not very hard. 

"8. --There was not much wind to-day. We fished for sea-gulls and caughtfour. I caught one and let it go again. Two hens flew overboard. Thesailors in a boat got one of them; the gulls killed one. 

"9. --The day has been rather gloomy. I caught another sea-gull but lethim go again. On deck nearly all day. 

"10. --The cockatoo sits on deck and talks and talks. 

"11. --It makes me feel bad when I think of home. I want to be there. "

The long, long weary days dragged on. It is thought worth while to notethat there were fresh eggs for breakfast, fresh pork for dinner, freshchicken for supper; that a porpoise had been captured, and that hiscarcass yielded "three gallons of oil as good as sperm oil"; that noship had been seen--"no sail from day to day"; that they were in thelatitude of Panama; that it was squally or not squally, as the casemight be; that on one occasion they captured "four barrels of oil, " theflotsam of some ill-fated whaler, and that it all proved "veryexciting"; that a dolphin was captured, and that he died in splendor, passing through the whole gamut of the rainbow--that the words oftradition might be fulfilled; that the hens had suffered no sea-change, but had contributed from a dozen to two dozen eggs per day. Stillstretched the immeasurable waste of waters to the horizon line on everyhand. Day by day the small boy made his entries; but he seemed to berunning down, like a clock, and needed winding up. This is how hisrecord dwindled:

"JAN. 20. --The day is very pleasant, with some wind. We crossed theequator. I sat up in one of the boats a long time. I wish my littlebrothers were here to play with me. 

"21. --The day is very pleasant, with a good breeze. We are going ten oreleven knots an hour. 

"22. --The day is very pleasant. A nine-knot breeze. Nothing new happenedto-day. 

"23. --The day is pleasant. Six-knot breeze. "

It came to pass that the small, sad boy, wearying of "Uncle Tom" and his"cabin, " was driven to extremes; and, having obtained leave of thecaptain--who was autocrat of all his part of the world, --he climbed intoone of the ship's boats, as it hung in the davits over the side of thevessel. It was an airy voyage he took there, sailing between sea andsky, soaring up and down with the rolling vessel, like a bird upon thewing. 

He rigged a tiny mast there--it was a walking-stick that ably servedthis purpose; the captain's wife provided sails no larger thanhandkerchiefs. With thread-like ropes and pencil spars he set his sailsfor dreamland. One day the wind bothered him; he could not trim hiscanvas, and in desperation he set it dead against the wind, and then thesails were filled almost to bursting. But his navigation was at fault;for he was heading in a direction quite opposite to the _Flying Cloud_. 

Then came a facetious sailor and whispered to him: "Do you want ever toget to New York?"--"Yes, I do, " said the little captain of the midaircraft. --"Well, then, you'd better haul in sail; for you're set dead aginus now. " The sails were struck on the instant and never unfurled again. 

I wonder why some people are so very inconsiderate when they speak tochildren, especially to simple or sensitive children? The small, sad boytook it greatly to heart, and was cast down because he feared that hemight have delayed the bark that bore him all too slowly toward thefar-distant port. This was indeed simplicity of the deepest dye, andsomething of that simplicity the boy was never to escape unto the endof time. We are as God made us, and we must in all cases put up withourselves. 

What a lonely voyage was that across the vast and vacant sea! Now andthen a distant sail glimmered upon the horizon, but disappeared like avanishing snowflake. The equator was crossed; the air grew colder; stormand calm followed each other; the daily entry now becomes monotonous. 

"FEBRUARY 2. --To-day for the first time we saw an albatross. 

"7. --Rather rough and cold; I have spent all day in the cabin. It makesme homesick to have such weather. 

"14. --I rose at five o'clock and went on deck, and before long saw land. It was Terra del Fuego; it was a beautiful sight. Here lay a prettyisland, there a towering precipice, and over yonder a mountain coveredwith snow. We made the fatal Cape Horn at two o'clock, and passed it atfour o'clock. Now we are in the Atlantic Ocean. 

"WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY. --Rough weather: a sixteen-knot breeze. To-day wegot our one thousandth egg, and the hens are doing well. Attwelve--eight bells--we saw a sail on our weather-bow: she was going thesame way as we were. At two, we overtook and spoke her. She was thewhaler _Scotland_ from New Zealand, bound for New Bedford, withthirty-five hundred barrels of oil. We soon passed her. I wish her goodluck. "

I will no longer stretch the small, sad boy upon the rack of his dulljournal. He had a glimpse at Juan Fernandez, but the island of hisdreams was so far off that he had to climb to the maintop in order toget a sight of its shadowy outline. When it had faded away like theclouds, the lonely little fellow cried himself to sleep for love of hisRobinson Crusoe. 

One night the moon--a large, mellow tropical one, --rose from a bank ofcloud so like a mountain's chain that the small one clapped his hands inglee and cried: "Land ho!" But, alas! it was only cloud-land; and hiseyes, that were starving for a sight of God's green earth, were againbedewed. Indeed he was bound for a distant shore, a voyage of ninety-onedays; and during all that voyage he was in sight of land for five daysonly. It may be said that the port he was bound for, and where he wasdestined to pass two years at school, four thousand miles from his ownpeople, may be called "The Vale of Tears. "

Off the Brazilian coast a head-wind forced the ship to tack repeatedly;she was sometimes so near the land that people could be seen moving, like black dots, along the shore. Native fishermen, mounted upon thehigh seats of their catamarans--the frailest rafts, --drifted withinhailing distance; and over night the brave ship was within almostspeaking distance of Pernambuco. The lights of the city were like a bedof glowworms, --but the small, sad boy was blown off into the sea again, for his hour had not yet come. 

Here is the last entry I shall weary you with, for I would not abuseyour patience:

"APRIL 5, 1857. --I was _awoke_ this morning by the noise the pilot madein getting on board. At ten o'clock the steam-tug Hercules took us intow. We had beautiful views of the shore [God knows how beautiful theywere in his eyes!], and at three o'clock we were at the Astor House, with Captain and Mrs. Cresey, Mr. Connor, and the Stoddard boys--all ofthe _Flying Cloud_, --where we retired to soft beds to spend the night. "

There is a plaintive touch in that reference to _soft beds_ after threemonths in the straight and narrow bunk of a ship. And there is morepathos in all those childish pages than you wot of; for, alas and alas!I am the sole survivor, --I was that small, sad boy; and I alone am leftto tell the tale. 

A BIT OF OLD CHINA

"It is but a step from Confucius to confusion, " said I, in a briefdiscussion of the Chinese question. "Then let us take it by all means, "replied the artist, who had been an indulgent listener for at least tenminutes. We were strolling upon the verge of the Chinese Quarter in SanFrancisco, and, turning aside from one of the chief thoroughfares of thecity, we plunged into the busiest portion of Chinatown. From ourstandpoint--the corner of Kearny and Sacramento Streets--we got the mostfavorable view of our Mongolian neighbors. Here is a goodly number ofmerchant gentlemen of wealth and station, comfortably, if not elegantly, housed on two sides of a street that climbs a low hill quite in themanner of a tea-box landscape. 

A few of these gentlemen lodge on the upper floors of their businesshouses, with Chinese wives, and quaint, old-fashioned children gaudilydressed, looking like little idols, chatting glibly with one another, and gracefully gesticulating with hands of exquisite slenderness. Confucius, in his infancy, may have been like one of the least of these. There are white draymen and porters in the employ of these shrewd andcivil merchants, and the outward appearance of traffic, as conducted inthe immediate vicinity, is rather American than otherwise. 

Farther up the hill, on Dupont Street, from California to PacificStreets, the five blocks are almost monopolized by the Chinese. Thereis, at first, a sprinkling of small shops in the hands of Jews andGentiles, and a mingling of Chinese bazaars of the half-caste type, where American and English goods are exposed in the show windows; but aswe pass on the Asiatic element increases, and finally every trace ofalien produce is withdrawn from the shelves and counters. 

Here little China flaunts her scarlet streamers overhead, and flanks herdoors with legends in saffron and gold; even its window panes have aforeign look, and within is a glimmering of tinsel, a subdued light, andchina lamps flickering before graven images of barbaric hideousness. Theair is laden with the fumes of smoking sandal-wood and strange odors ofthe East; and the streets, swarming with coolies, resound with theechoes of an unknown tongue. There is hardly room for us to pass; wepick our way, and are sometimes curiously regarded by slant-eyed pagans, who bear us no good-will, if that shadow of scorn in the face has beenrightly interpreted. China is not more Chinese than this section of ourChristian city, nor the heart of Tartary less American. 

Turn which way we choose, within two blocks, on either hand we findnothing but the infinitely small and astonishingly numerous forms oftraffic on which the hordes around us thrive. No corner is too crampedfor the squatting street cobbler; and as for the pipe cleaners, thecigarette rollers, the venders of sweetmeats and conserves, they gatheron the curb or crouch under overhanging windows, and await custom withthe philosophical resignation of the Oriental. 

On Dupont Street, between Clay and Sacramento Streets--a singleblock, --there are no less than five basement apartments devotedexclusively to barbers. There are hosts of this profession in thequarter. Look down the steep steps leading into the basement and see, atany hour of the day, with what deft fingers the tonsorial operatorsmanipulate the devoted pagan head. 

There is no waste space in the quarter. In apartments not more thanfifteen feet square three or four different professions are oftenrepresented, and these afford employment to ten or a dozen men. Here isa druggist and herb-seller, with huge spectacles on his nose, at theleft of the main entrance; a butcher displays his meats in a show-windowon the right, serving his customers over the sill; a clothier is in therear of the shop, while a balcony filled with tailors or cigar-makershangs half-way to the ceiling. 

[Illustration: "China is Not More Chinese than this Section of OurChristian City. "]

Close about us there are over one hundred and fifty mercantileestablishments and numerous mechanical industries. The seventy-fivecigar factories employ eight thousand coolies, and these are huddledinto the closest quarters. In a single room, measuring twenty feet bythirty feet, sixty men and boys have been discovered industriouslyrolling _real_ Havanas. 

The traffic which itinerant fish and vegetable venders drive in everypart of the city must be great, being as it is an extreme conveniencefor lazy or thrifty housewives. A few of these basket men cultivategardens in the suburbs, but the majority seek their supplies in the citymarkets. Wash-houses have been established in every part of the city, and are supplied with two sets of laborers, who spend watch and watch onduty, so that the establishment is never closed. 

One frequently meets a travelling bazaar--a coolie with his bundle offans and bric-a-brac, wandering from house to house, even in thesuburbs; and the old fellows, with a handful of sliced bamboos andchairs swinging from the poles over their shoulders, are becoming quitenumerous; chair mending and reseating must be profitable. These littlerivulets, growing larger and more varied day by day, all spring fromthat great fountain of Asiatic vitality--the Chinese Quarter. Thissurface-skimming beguiles for an hour or two; but the stranger whostrolls through the streets of Chinatown, and retires dazed with thethousand eccentricities of an unfamiliar people, knows little of themysterious life that surrounds him. 

Let us descend. We are piloted by a special policeman, one who is wellacquainted with the geography of the quarter. Provided with tapers, weplunge into one of the several dark recesses at hand. Back of the highlyrespectable brick buildings in Sacramento Street--the dwellings andbusiness places of the first-class Chinese merchants--there are pits anddeadfalls innumerable, and over all is the blackness of darkness; forthese human moles can work in the earth faster than the shade of themurdered Dane. Here, from the noisome vats three stories underground tothe hanging gardens of the fish-dryers on the roofs, there is neithernook nor corner but is populous with Mongolians of the lowest caste. Thebetter class have their reserved quarters; with them there is at leastroom to stretch one's legs without barking the shins of one's neighbor;but from this comparative comfort to the condensed discomfort of theimpoverished coolie, how sudden and great the change!

Between brick walls we thread our way, and begin descending into theabysmal darkness; the tapers, without which it were impossible toproceed with safety, burn feebly in the double night of thesubterranean tenements. Most of the habitable quarters under the groundare like so many pigeon-houses indiscriminately heaped together. Ifthere were only sunshine enough to drink up the slime that glosses everyplank, and fresh air enough to sweeten the mildewed kennels, this highlyeccentric style of architecture might charm for a time, by reason of itsnovelty; there is, moreover, a suspicion of the picturesque lurkingabout the place--but, heaven save us, how it smells!

[Illustration: "Rag Alley" in Old Chinatown]

We pass from one black hole to another. In the first there is a kind ofbin for ashes and coals, and there are pots and grills lying about--itis the kitchen. A heap of fire kindling wood in one corner, a bench orstool as black as soot can paint it, a few bowls, a few bits of rags, afew fragments of food, and a coolie squatting over a strugglingfire, --coolie who rises out of the dim smoke like the evil _genii_ inthe Arabian tale. There is no chimney, there is no window, there is nodrainage. We are in a cubic sink, where we can scarcely stand erect. From the small door pours a dense volume of smoke, some of it stalesmoke, which our entry has forced out of the corners; the kitchen willonly hold so much smoke, and we have made havoc among the cubic inches. Underfoot, the thin planks sag into standing pools, and there is aglimmer of poisonous blue just along the base of the blackened walls;thousands feed daily in troughs like these!

The next apartment, smaller yet, and blacker and bluer, and moreslippery and slimy, is an uncovered cesspool, from which a sickeningstench exales continually. All about it are chambers--very smallones, --state-rooms let me call them, opening upon narrow galleries thatrun in various directions, sometimes bridging one another in a marvelousand exceedingly ingenious economy of space. The majority of thesestate-rooms are just long enough to lie down in, and just broad enoughto allow a narrow door to swing inward between two single beds, with twosleepers in each bed. The doors are closed and bolted; there is often nowindow, and always no ventilation. 

Our "special, " by the authority vested in him, tries one door anddemands admittance. There is no response from within. A group ofcoolies, who live in the vicinity and have followed close upon our heelseven since our descent into the under world, assure us in soothing tonesthat the place is vacant. We are suspicious and persist in ourinvestigation; still no response. The door is then forced by the"special, " and behold four of the "seven sleepers" packed into thisair-tight compartment, and insensible even to the hearty greeting weoffer them!

The air is absolutely overpowering. We hasten from the spot, but arearrested in our flight by the "special, " who leads us to the gate of thecatacombs, and bids us follow him. I know not to what extent the earthhas been riddled under the Chinese Quarter; probably no man knows savehe who has burrowed, like a gopher, from one living grave to another, fleeing from taxation or the detective. I know that we thread darkpassages, so narrow that two of us may not cross tracks, so low that weoften crouch at the doorways that intercept pursuit at unexpectedintervals. Here the thief and the assassin seek sanctuary; it is a cityof refuge for lost souls. 

The numerous gambling houses are so cautiously guarded that only theprivate police can ferret them out. Door upon door is shut against you;or some ingenious panel is slid across your path, and you areunconsciously spirited away through other avenues. The secret signalsthat gave warning of your approach caused a sudden transformation in theground-plan of the establishment. 

Gambling and opium smoking are here the ruling passions. A coolie willpawn anything and everything to obtain the means with which to indulgethese fascinations. There are many games played publicly at restaurantsand in the retiring rooms of mercantile establishments. Not only arecards, dice, and dominos common, but sticks, straws, brass rings, etc. , are thrown in heaps upon the table, and the fate of the gamester hangsliterally upon a breath. 

These haunts are seldom visited by the officers of justice, for it isalmost impossible to storm the barriers in season to catch the criminalsin the very act. To-day you approach a gambling hell by this door, to-morrow the inner passages of the house are mysteriously changed, andit is impossible to track them without being frequently misled;meanwhile the alarm is sounded throughout the building, and veryspeedily every trace of guilt has disappeared. The lottery is anotherpopular temptation in the quarter. Most of the very numerous wash-housesare said to be private agencies for the sale of lottery tickets. Putyour money, no matter how little it is, on certain of the charactersthat cover a small sheet of paper, and your fate is soon decided; forthere is a drawing twice a day. 

Enter any one of the pawn-shops licensed by the city authorities, andcast your eye over the motley collection of unredeemed articles. Thereare pistols of every pattern and almost of every age, the majority ofthem loaded. There are daggers in infinite variety, including theingenious fan stiletto, which, when sheathed, may be carried in the handwithout arousing suspicion; for the sheath and handle bear; an exactresemblance to a closed fan. There are entire suits of clothes, beds andbedding, tea, sugar, clocks--multitudes of them, a clock being one ofthe Chinese hobbies, and no room is completely furnished without atleast a pair of them, --ornaments in profusion; everything, in fact, saveonly the precious _queue_, without which no Chinaman may hope for honorin this life or salvation in the next. 

The throngs of customers that keep the pawn-shops crowded with pledgesare probably most of them victims of the gambling table or the opiumden. They come from every house that employs them; your domestic isimpatient of delay, and hastens through his daily task in order that hemay nightly indulge his darling sin. 

The opium habit prevails to an alarming extent throughout the country, but no race is so dependent on this seductive and fatal stimulant as theChinese. There are several hundred dens in San Francisco where, for avery moderate sum, the coolie may repair, and revel in dreams that endin a deathlike sleep. 

Let us pause at the entrance of one of these pleasure-houses. Throughdevious ways we follow the leader, and come at last to a cavernousretreat. The odors that salute us are offensive; on every hand there isan accumulation of filth that should naturally, if it does not, breedfever and death. Forms press about us in the darkness, --forms thathasten like shadows toward that den of shades. We enter by a small doorthat is open for a moment only, and find ourselves in an apartmentabout fifteen feet square. We can touch the ceiling on tiptoe, yet thereare three tiers of bunks placed with head boards to the wall, and eachbunk just broad enough for two occupants. It is like the steerage in anemigrant vessel, eminently shipshape. Every bunk is filled; some of thesmokers have had their dream and lie in grotesque attitudes, insensible, ashen-pale, having the look of plague-stricken corpses. 

Some are dreaming; you see it in the vacant eye, the listless face, theexpression that betrays hopeless intoxication. Some are preparing theenchanting pipe, --a laborious process, that reminds one of anincantation. See those two votaries lying face to face, chatting in lowvoices, each loading his pipe with a look of delicious expectation inevery feature. They recline at full-length; their heads rest upon blocksof wood or some improvised pillow; a small oil lamp flickers betweenthem. Their pipes resemble flutes, with an inverted ink-bottle on theside near the lower end. They are most of them of bamboo, and very oftenare beautifully colored with the mellowest and richest tints of a wiselysmoked meerschaum. A small jar of prepared opium--a thick black pasteresembling tar--stands near the lamp. 

The smoker leisurely dips a wire into the paste; a few drops adhere toit, and he twirls the wire in the flame of the lamp, where they fry andbubble; he then draws them upon the rim of the clay pipe-bowl, and atonce inhales three or four mouthfuls of whitish smoke. This empties thepipe, and the slow process of feeding the bowl is lazily repeated. It isa labor of love; the eyes gloat upon the bubbling drug which shall anonwitch the soul of those emaciated toilers. They renew the pipe again andagain; their talk grows less frequent and dwindles to a whisperedsoliloquy. 

We address them, and are smiled at by delirious eyes; but the ravenouslips are sealed to that magic tube, from which they draw the breath of alife we know not of. Their fingers relax; their heads sink upon thepillows; they no longer respond, even by a glance, when we now appeal tothem. Here is the famous Malay, the fearful enemy of De Quincy, whonightly drugged his master into Asiatic seas; and now himself is baskingin the tropical heats and vertical sunlight of Hindostan. Egypt and hergods are his; for him the secret chambers of Cheops are unlocked; healso is transfixed at the summit of pagodas; he is the idol, the priest, the worshipped, the sacrificed. The wrath of Brahma pursues him throughthe forests of Asia; he is the hated of Vishnu; Siva lies in wait forhim; Isis and Osiris confront him. 

What is this key which seems for a time to unlock the gates of heavenand of hell? It is the most complicated drug in the pharmacopoeia. Though apparently nothing more than a simple black, slimy paste, analysis reveals the fact that it contains no less than five-and-twentyelements, each one of them a compound by itself, and many of them amongthe most complex compounds known to modern chemistry. This "dread agentof unimaginable pleasure and pain, " this author of an "Iliad of woes, "lies within reach of every creature in the commonwealth. As the mostenlightened and communicative of the opium eaters has observed:"Happiness may be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoatpocket; portable ecstasy may be had corked up in a pint bottle; peace ofmind may be set down in gallons by the mail-coach. "

This is the chief, the inevitable dissipation of our coolie tribes; thisis one of the evils with which we have to battle, and in comparison withwhich the excessive indulgence in intoxicating liquors is no more thanwhat a bad dream is to hopeless insanity. See the hundred forms on opiumpillows already under the Circean spell; swarms are without the chambersawaiting their turn to enter and enjoy the fictitious delights of thisparadise. 

While the opium habit is one that should be treated at once with wisdomand severity, there is another point which seriously involves theChinese question, and, unhappily, it must be handled with gloves. Nineteen-twentieths of the Chinese women in San Francisco are depraved!

Not far from one of the pleasure-houses we intruded upon a domestichearth smelling of punk and pestilence. A child fled with a shrillscream at our approach. This was the hospital of the quarter. Nine casesof small-pox were once found within its narrow walls, and with no one tocare for them. As we explored its cramped wards our path was obstructedby a body stretched upon a bench. The face was of that peculiarsmoke-color which we are obliged to accept as Chinese pallor; the trunkwas swathed like a mummy in folds of filthy rags; it was motionless asstone, apparently insensible. Thus did an opium victim await hisdissolution. 

In the next room a rough deal burial case stood upon two stools; taperswere flickering upon the floor; the fumes of burning punk freighted theair and clouded the vision; the place was clean enough, for it wasperfectly bare, but it was eminently uninteresting. Close at hand stooda second burial case, an empty one, with the cover standing against thewall; a few hours more and it would find a tenant--he who was dying inrags and filth in the room adjoining. This was the native hospital ofthe quarter, and the mother of the child was the matron of theestablishment. 

I will cast but one more shadow on the coolie quarter, and then we willsearch for sunshine. It is folly to attempt to ignore the fact that theseeds of leprosy are sown among the Chinese. If you would have proof, follow me. It is a dreary drive over the hills to the pest-house. Imagine that we have dropped in upon the health officer at his cityoffice. Our proposed visitation has been telephoned to the residentphysician, who is a kind of prisoner with his leprous patients on thelonesome slope of a suburban hill. As we get into the rugged edge of thecity, among half-graded streets, strips of marshland, and a semi-rusticpopulation, we ask our way to the pest-house. Yonder it lies, surroundedby that high white fence on the hill-top, above a marsh once cloudedwith clamorous water-fowl, but now all, all under the spell of thequarantine, and desolate beyond description. Our road winds up thehill-slope, sown thick with stones, and stops short at the great solidgate in the high rabbit fence that walls in the devil's acre, if I mayso call it. We ring the dreadful bell--the passing-bell, that is seldomrung save to announce the arrival of another fateful body clothed inliving death. 

The doctor welcomes us to an enclosure that is utterly whitewashed; thedetached houses within it are kept sweet and clean. Everything connectedwith the lazaret is of the cheapest description; there is a primitivesimplicity, a modest nakedness, an insulated air about the place thatreminds one of a chill December in a desert island. Cheap as it is andunhandsome, the hospital is sufficient to meet all the requirements ofthe plague in its present stage of development. The doctor has weededout the enclosure, planted it, hedged it about with the fever-dispellingeucalyptus, and has already a little plot of flowers by the officewindow, --but this is not what we have come to see. One ward in thepest-house is set apart for the exclusive use of the Chinese lepers, whohave but recently been isolated. We are introduced to the poor creaturesone after another, and then we take them all in at a glance, or groupthem according to their various stages of decomposition, or the peculiarcharacter of their physical hideousness. 

They are not all alike; with some the flesh has begun to wither and toslough off, yet they are comparatively cheerful; as fatalists, it makesvery little difference to them how soon or in what fashion they aretranslated to the other life. There is one youth who doubtless sufferssome inconveniences from the clumsy development of his case. This lad, about eighteen years of age, has a face that is swollen like a spongesaturated with corruption; he can not raise his bloated eyelids, but, with his head thrown back, looks downward over his cheeks. Two of theselepers are as astonishing specimens as any that have ever come under myobservation, yet I have morbidly sought them from Palestine to Molokai. In these cases the muscles are knotted, the blood curdled; masses ofunwholesome flesh cover them, lying fold upon fold; the lobes of theirears hang almost to the shoulder; the eyes when visible have an inhumanglance that transfixes you with horror. Their hands are shapeless stumpsthat have lost all natural form or expression. 

Of old there was a law for the leprosy of a garment and of a house; yet, in spite of the stringency of that Mosaic law, the isolation, thepurging with hyssop, and the cleansing by fire, St. Luke records: "Theremet Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off; and they lifted uptheir voices and cried, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" And to-day, more than eighteen hundred years later, lepers gather on the slopes ofMount Zion, and hover at the gates of Jerusalem, and crouch in theshadow of the tomb of David, crying for the bread of mercy. Leprosy oncethoroughly engrafted on our nation, and nor cedar-wood, nor scarlet, norhyssop, nor clean birds, nor ewes of the first year, nor measures offine flour, nor offerings of any sort, shall cleanse us for evermore. 

Let us turn to pleasanter prospects--the Joss House, for instance, oneof the several temples whither the Chinese frequently repair topropitiate the reposeful gods. It is an unpretentious building, withnothing external to distinguish its facade from those adjoining, saveonly a Chinese legend above the door. There are many crooks and turnswithin it; shrines in a perpetual state of fumigation adorn its nooksand corners; overhead swing shelves of images rehearsing historicaltableaux; there is much carving and gilding, and red and green paint. Itis the scene of a perennial feast of lanterns, and the worshipful entersilently with burn-offerings and meat-offerings and drink-offerings, which they spread before the altar under the feet of some colossal god;then, with repeated genuflections, they retire. The thundering gong orthe screaming pipes startle us at intervals, and white-robed priestspass in and out, droning their litanies. 

At this point the artist suggests refreshments; arm in arm we pass downthe street, surfeited with sight-seeing, weary of the multitudinousbazaars, the swarming coolies, the boom of beehive industry. Swamped ina surging crowd, we are cast upon the catafalque of the celestial dead. The coffin lies under a canopy, surrounded by flambeaux, graveofferings, guards and musicians. 

Chinatown has become sufficiently acclimatized to begin to put forth itsnatural buds again as freely as if this were indeed the Flowery Land. The funeral pageant moves, --a dozen carriages preceded by mourners onfoot, clad in white, their heads covered, their feet bare, their griefinsupportable, so that an attendant is at hand to sustain each mournerhowling at the wheels of the hearse. An orchestra heads the procession;the air is flooded with paper prayers that are cast hither at you toappease the troubled spirit. They are on their way to the cemetery amongthe hills toward the sea, where the funeral rites are observed asrigorously as they are on Asian soil. 

We are still unrefreshed and sorely in need of rest. Overhead swing hugeballoon lanterns and tufts of gold flecked scarlet streamers, --a sightthat maketh the palate of the hungry Asiatic to water; for within thishouse may be had all the delicacies of the season, ranging from theconfections of the fond suckling to funeral bake-meats. Legends wroughtin tinsel decorate the walls. Here is a shrine with a vermilion-facedgod and a native lamp, and stalks of such hopelessly artificial flowersas fortunately are unknown in nature. Saffron silks flutter theirfringes in the steams of nameless cookery--for all this is but thekitchen, and the beginning of the end we aim at. 

A spiral staircase winds like a corkscrew from floor to floor; we ascendby easy stages, through various grades of hunger, from the economicappetite on the first floor, where the plebian stomach is stayed withtea and lentils, even to the very house-top, where are administeredcomforting syrups and a _menu_ that is sweetened throughout its lengthwith the twang of lutes, the clash of cymbals, and the throb of theshark-skin drum. 

Servants slip to and fro in sandals, offering edible birds'-nests, sharks' fins, and _beche de mer_, --or are these unfamiliar dishessnatched from some other kingdom? At any rate, they are native to thestrange people who have a little world of their own in our midst, andwho could, if they chose, declare their independence to-morrow. 

We see everywhere the component parts of a civilization separate anddistinct from our own. They have their exits and their entrances; theirreligious life and burial; their imports, exports, diversions, tribunals, punishments. They are all under the surveillance of the sixcompanies, the great six-headed supreme authority. They have laws withinour laws that to us are sealed volumes. Why should they not? Fifty yearsago there were scarcely a dozen Chinese in America. In 1851, inclusive, not more than 4, 000 had arrived; but the next year brought 18, 000, seized with the lust of gold. The incoming tide fluctuated, running aslow as 4, 000 and as high as 15, 000 per annum. Since, 1868 we havereceived from 10, 000 to 15, 000 yearly. 

After supper we leaned from the high balcony, among flowers andlanterns, and looked down upon the street below; it was midnight, yetthe pavements were not deserted, and there arose to our ears a murmuras of a myriad humming bees shut in clustering hives; close about uswere housed near twenty thousand souls; shops were open; discordantorchestras resounded from the theatres; in a dark passage we saw theflames playing upon the thresholds of infamy to expel the evil shades. 

Away off in the Bay in the moonlight, glimmered the ribbed sail of afishing junk, and the air was heavy with an indefinable odor which tothis hour puzzles me; but it must be attributed either to sink orsandal-wood--perchance to both!

"It is a little bit of old China, this quarter of ours, " said theartist, rising to go. And so it is, saving only a noticeable lack ofdwarfed trees and pale pagodas and sprays of willowy bamboo; of clumsyboats adrift on tideless streams; of toy-like tea gardens hanging amongartificial rocks, and of troops of flat-faced but complaisant peopleposing grotesquely in ridiculous perspective. 

[Illustration: The Farallones]

WITH THE EGG-PICKERS OF THE FARALLONES

Those who have visited the markets of San Francisco during the eggseason may have noticed the abundance of large and singularly markedeggs, that are offered for sale by the bushel. The shells of these eggsare pear-shaped, parti-colored, and very thick. They range in color froma light green to grey or brown, and are all of them profusely spotted, or blotted, I might say spattered, with clots of black or brown. Someare beautiful, with soft tints blended in a delicate lace-like pattern. Some are very ugly, and look unclean. All are a trifle stale, with ameat of coarse texture and gamy flavor. But the Italians and the Cooliesare fond of them, and doubtless many a gross finds its way into thekitchens of the popular cheap restaurants, where, disguised in omeletsand puddings, the quantity compensates for the lack of quality, and thepalate of the rapid eater has not time to analyze the latter. These arethe eggs of the sea-gull, the gull that cries all day among the shippingin the harbor, follows the river boats until meal-time, and feeds on thebread that is cast upon the water. [2] How true it is that this breadreturns to us after many days!

The gulls, during incubation, seek the solitude of the Farallones, agroup of desolate and weather-beaten rocks that tower out of the fogabout thirty miles distant from the mouth of the harbor of SanFrancisco. Nothing can be more magnificently desolate than the aspect ofthese islands. Scarcely a green blade finds root there. They are hauntedby sea-fowl of all feathers, and the boom of the breakers mingles withthe bark of the seals that have colonized on one of the mostinaccessible islands of the group. It is here that myriads of sea-birdsrear their young, here where the very cliffs tremble in the tempestuoussea and are drenched with bitter spray, and where ships have been castinto the frightful jaws of caverns and speedily ground into splinters. 

The profit on sea-eggs has increased from year to year, and of latespeculators have grown so venturesome that competition amongegg-gatherers has resulted in an annual naval engagement, known to thepress and the public as the egg-war. If two companies of egg-pickersmet, as was not unlikely, the contending factions fell upon one anotherwith their ill-gotten spoils--the islands are under the rule of theUnited States, and no one has legal right to take from them so much asone egg without license--and the defeated party was sure to retire fromthe field under a heavy shower of shells, the contents of which, thoughnot fatal, were at least effective. 

I have before me the notes of a retired egg-picker; they record thebrief experience of one who was interested in the last campaign, which, as it terminated the career of the egg-pirates, is not withouthistorical interest. I will at once introduce the historian, and let himtell his own tale. 

"On Board the Schooner 'Sierra. '-- "Off the City Front. "May 4, 1881. 

"5 p. M. --There are ten of us all told; most of us strangers to oneanother, but Tom and Jim, and Fred, that's me, are pals, and have beenthese many months. So we conclude to hang together, and make the most ofan adventure perfectly new to each. At our feet lie our traps; blankets, woolen shirts, heavy boots, with huge nails in the soles of them, tobacco in bulk, a few novels, a pack of cards, and a pocket flask, forthe stomach's sake. A jolly crew, to be sure, and jollily we bade adieuto the fellows who had gathered in the dock to wish us God-speed. Casting loose we swung into the stream, and then slowly and clumsilymade sail. The town never looked prettier; it is always the way andalways will be; towns, like blessings, brighten just as they get out ofreach. Drifting into the west we began to grow thoughtful; what had atfirst seemed a lark may possibly prove to be a very serious matter. Wehave to feed on rough rations, work in a rough locality, among roughpeople, and our profits, or our share of the profits, will dependentirely upon the fruitfulness of the egg-orchard, and the number ofhundred gross that we are able to get safely into the market. No newsfrom the town, save by the schooner that comes over at intervals to takeaway our harvest. No society, save our own, good enough always, providedwe are not forcibly confined to it. No amusements beyond a novel, apipe, and a pack of cards. Ah well! it is only an experience after all, and here goes!

"Sea pretty high, as we get outside the Heads, and feel the long roll ofthe Pacific. Wind, fresh and cold; we are to be out all night andlooking about for bunks, we find the schooner accommodations arelimited, and that the captain and his crew monopolize them. We sleepanywhere, grateful that we are able to sleep at all. 

"10 p. M. --A blustering head wind, and sea increasing. What little supperwe were able to get on board was worse than none at all, for it did notstay with us--anything but fun, this going to sea in a bowl, to robgull's nests, and smuggle eggs into market. 

"May 5th. 

"Woke in the early dawn, everything moist and sticky, clammy is thebetter word, and that embraces the whole case; stiff and sore in everyjoint; bacon for dinner last night, more bacon for breakfast thismorning, and only half-cooked at that. Our delicate town-bred stomachsrebel, and we conclude to fast until we reach the island. Have sightedthe Farallones, but are too miserable to express our gratitude; wind andsea still rising; schooner on beam ends about once in forty seconds, between times standing either on her head or her tail, and shakingherself 'like a thing of life. '

"At noon off the landing, a buoy bobbing in the billows, to which we areexpected to make fast the schooner, and get to shore in the exceedinglysmall boat; captain fears to tarry on account of heavy weather;concludes to return to the coast and bide his time; consequently makesfor Bolinas Bay, which we reach about 9 p. M. , and drop anchor incomparatively smooth water; glad enough to sleep on an even keel atlast; it seems at least six months since we left the shining shores ofSan Francisco, yet it is scarce thirty hours--but such hours, ugh!

"Bolinas Bay, May 6th. 

"Wind blowing a perfect gale; we are lying under a long hill, and thenarrow bay is scarcely rippled by the blast that rushes over us, thickwith flying-scud. Captain resolves to await better weather; some of theboys go on shore, and wander out to a kind of reef at the mouth of thebay, where in a short time they succeed in gathering a fine mess ofmussels; the rest of us, the stay-on-boards, rig up a net and catchfifteen large fat crabs; with these we cook a delicious dinner, which wedevour ravenously, like half-starved men; begin to realize howstorm-tossed mariners feel, and have been recounting hair-breadthescapes, over our pipes on deck; there will be much to tell the fellowson shore, if we are ever so fortunate as to get home again. 

"May 7th. 

"Though the weather is still bad enough to discourage us landsmen, weput to sea, and once more head for the Farallones. They are hidden inmist, but we beat bravely about, and by-and-by distinguish the faintoutlines of the islands looming through the fog! We try to secure thebuoy, tacking to and fro; just at the wrong moment our main halyardspart, and the sail comes crashing to the deck. To avoid being cast onthe inhospitable shore, we put to sea under jib and foresail, and arefive miles away before damages are repaired and we dare venture toreturn; head about, and make fast this time. Hurrah! After several tripsof the small boat, succeed in landing luggage and provisions abovehigh-water mark on the Farallones; each trip of the boat is an event, for it comes in on a big breaker, and grounds in a torrent of foam andsand. 

"We find two cabins at our disposal; the larger one containingdining-room and kitchen, and chambers above; seven of our boys storetheir blankets in the rude bunks that are drawn by lot. Tom, Jim, and Isecure the smaller cabin, a single room, with bunks on three sides, adoor on the fourth. 

"9 p. M. --We have dined and smoked and withdrawn to our respectivelodges; the wind moans without, a thin, cold fog envelopes us; the seabreaking furiously, the night gloomy beyond conception, but the captainand his crew on the little schooner are not so comfortable as theegg-pickers whom they have left behind. 

"May 8th. 

"We all rose much refreshed, and after a hearty breakfast, such as wouldhave done credit to a mining-camp in pioneer days, set forth on a rabbitchase. The islands abound in rabbits. Where do they come from, and onwhat do they feed? These are questions that puzzle us. 

"We resolve to attack them. Having armed ourselves with clubs about twofeet in length, we proceed in a body until a rabbit is sighted, then, separating, we surround him and gradually close him in, pelt him withstones or sticks until the poor fellow is secured; sometimes three orfour are run down together; it is cruel sport, but this is our only hopeof fresh meat during the sojourn on the islands; a fine stew for dinner, and some speculation on the prospect of our egg-hunt to-morrow. 

"May 9th. 

"We did the first work of the season to-day. At the west end of theislands is a chasm, through which the wind whistles; the waves, rushingin from both sides, meet at the centre and leap wildly into the air. Across this chasm we threw a light suspension bridge about forty feet inlength and two in width; one crosses it by the aid of a life-line. Onthe further rock the birds are nesting in large numbers, and to-morrowwe begin the wholesale robbery of their nests. 

"When the bridge was completed, being pretty well fagged and quitefamished, we returned to the cabin, lunched heartily, and spent theafternoon in highly successful rabbit chasing. Plenty of stew for all ofus. If Robinson Crusoe had been cast ashore on this island, I wonder howhe would have lived? As it is, the rabbits sometimes succeed in escapingus, and without powder and shot it would be quite impossible for one ortwo persons to bag them. We are beginning to lose faith in thedelightful romances of our youth, and to realize what a desert islandis. 

"May 10th. 

"In front of us we each carry a large sack in which to deposit eggs; ourboots are clumsy, and the heavy nails that fill their soles make themheavy and difficult to walk in. We also carry a strong staff to aid usin climbing the rugged slopes. About us is nothing but grey, weather-stained rocks; there are few paths, and these we cannot follow, for the sea-birds, though so unused to the presence of man, are wary andshy of his tracks; the day's work has not proved profitable. Few of usgathered any eggs; one who was more successful, and had secured enoughto make it extremely difficult for him to scale the rocks, slipped, fellon his face, and scrambled all his store. His plight was laughable, buthe was scarcely in the mood to relish it, as he washed his sack andblouse in cold water, while we indulged in cards. 

[Illustration: Murre on their Nests, Farallone Islands]

"May 11th. 

"Built another bridge over a gap where the sea rushes, and which we callthe _Jordan_. If the real Jordan is as hard to cross, heaven help us. Eggs not very plentiful as yet; we are rather early in the season, orthe crop is late this year. More rabbits in the p. M. ; more wind, morefog; and at night, pipes, cards, and a few choruses that sound strangeand weird in the fire lights on this lonely island. 

"May 12th. 

"Eggs are so very scarce. The foreman advises our resting for a day. Welounge about, looking off upon the sea; sometimes a sail blows by us, but our islands are in such ill-repute with mariners, they usually giveus a wide berth, as they call it. A little homesick towards dusk; wonderhow the boys in San Francisco are killing time; it is time that iskilling us, out here in the wind and fog. 

"May 13th. 

"Have been hunting abalones all day, and found but a baker's dozen;their large, shallow shells are glued to the rock at the first approachof danger, and unless we can steal upon these queer fish unawares, andthrust something under their shells before they have shut down upon therock, it is almost impossible to pry them open. Some of the boys aresearching in the sea up to their waists--hard work when one considershow tough the abalone is, and how tasteless. 

"May 14th. 

"This morning all our egg-pickers were at work; took in the west end, only the high rock beyond the first bridge; gathered about forty dozeneggs, and got them safely back to camp; in some nests there were threeeggs, and these we did not gather, fearing they were stale. In the p. M. Tried to collect dry grass enough to make a thin mattress for my bunk;barely succeeded; am more than ever convinced that desert islands aredelusions. 

"May 15th. 

"It being Sunday, we rest from our labors; by way of varying themonotony of island life, we climb up to the lighthouse, 300 feet abovesea level. The path is zig-zag across the cliff, and is extremelyfatiguing. While ascending, a large stone rolled under my foot, andwent thundering down the cliff. Jim, who was in the rear, heard itcoming, and dodged; it missed his head by about six inches. Had itstruck him, he would have been hurled into the sea that boiled below; wewere both faint with horror, after realizing the fate he had escaped. Were cordially welcomed by the lighthouse keeper, his wife, and hercompanion, a young woman who had come to share this banishment. Thekeeper and his wife visit the mainland but twice a year. Everywhere wesaw evidence of the influence of these charming people. The house wastidy--the paint snow-white. The brass-work shone like gold; the placeseemed a kind of Paradise to us; even the machinery of the revolvinglight, the multitude of reflectors, etc. , was enchanting. We dreaded toreturn to our miserable cabins, but were soon compelled to, and theafternoon was spent in the customary rabbit chase, ending with a stew ofno mean proportions. 

"May 16th. 

"More eggs, and afterwards a fishing excursion, which furnished usmaterial for an excellent chowder. We are beginning to look for thereturn of the schooner, and have been longing for news from shore. 

"May 17th. 

"A great haul of abalones this p. M. We filled our baskets, slung themon poles over our shoulders Coolie fashion, and slowly made our way backto camp. The baskets weighed a ton each before we at last emptied themby the cabin door. Built a huge fire under a cauldron, and left a messof fish to boil until morning. The abalones are as large as steaks, anda great deal tougher. Smoke, cards, and to bed; used up. 

"May 18th. 

"Same program as yesterday, only the novelty quite worn off, and thiskind of life becoming almost unendurable. 

"May 19th. 

"More eggs, more abalones, more rabbits. No signs of schooner yet. Wonder, had Crusoe kept a diary, how many days he would have kept itbefore closing it with chagrin. 

"May 20th. 

"Spent the p. M. In getting the abalone shells down to the egg-house atthe landing. We have cleaned them, and are hoping to find thisspeculation profitable; for the shells, when polished and cut, are muchused in the market for inlaying and setting in cheap jewelry. We loadeda small tram, pushed it to the top of an incline, and let it roll downthe other side to the landing, which it reached in safety. This is theonly labor-saving machine at our command. 

"May 21st. 

"We seem to be going all to pieces. The day commenced badly. Two of theboys inaugurated it by a violent set-to before breakfast--an old grudgebroke out afresh, or perhaps the life here has demoralized them. I havelamed my foot. Tide too high for abalone fishing. Eggs growing scarce, and the rabbits seem to have deserted the accessible parts of theisland. Everybody is disgusted. We are forgetting our table-manners, itis 'first come first served' now-a-days. I wonder if Robinson--oh, no!he had no one but his man Friday to contend against. No schooner; nochange in the weather; tobacco giving out, and not a grain of good humorto be had in the market. To bed, very cross. 

"May 22d. 

"No one felt like going to work this morning. Affairs began to lookmutinous. We have searched in vain for the schooner, now considerablyoverdue, and are dreading the thought of having to fulfill a contractwhich calls for six weeks' labor on these islands. Some of the otherislands are to be visited, and are accessible only in small boats over asea that is never even tolerably smooth. This expedition we all dread alittle--at least, I judge so from my own case--but we say nothing of it. While thus gloomily brooding over our plight, smoke was sighted on thehorizon; we ascended the hill to watch it. A steamer, doubtless, boundfor a sunnier clime, for no clime can be less sunny than ours of thepast fortnight. . . . It was a steamer, a small Government steamer, makingdirectly for our island. We became greatly excited, for nothing of anymoment had occurred since our arrival. She drew in near shore and castanchor. We gathered at the landing-cove to give her welcome. A boat wasbeached in safety. An officer of the law said, cheerfully, as if he wereplaying a part in a nautical comedy, 'I must beg you, gentlemen, to stepon board the revenue cutter, and return to San Francisco. ' We were sosurprised we could not speak; or were we all speechless with joy, Iwonder? He added, this very civil sheriff, 'If you do not care toaccompany me, I shall be obliged to order the marines on shore. You willpardon me, but as these islands are Government property, you arerequested to immediately withdraw from them. ' We withdrew. We steamedaway from the windy rocks, the howling caverns, the seething waves, thefrightful chasms, the seabirds, the abalones, the rabbits, the gloomycabins, and the pleasant people at the top of the cliff within the whitewalls of the lighthouse. Joyfully we bounded over the glassy waves, thatgrew beautiful as the Farallones faded in the misty distance, and, having been courteously escorted to the city dock, we were biddenfarewell, and left to the diversions of the hour. Thus ended the lastsiege of the Farallones by the egg-pickers of San Francisco. (Profits_nil_. )"

And thus I fear, inasmuch as the Government proposes to guard thesea-birds until a suitable license is secured by legitimate egg-pickers, the price of gulls' eggs will go up in proportion, and hereafter weshall have to look upon them as luxuries, and content ourselves with themore modest and milder-flavored but undecorated products of the lessromantic barn-yard fowl. 

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: NOTE: The author has confused the murre with the sea-gull. It was the egg of the murre that was marketed. ]

A MEMORY OF MONTEREY

I

"Old Monterey"? Yes, old Monterey; yet not so very old. Old, however, inasmuch as she has been hopelessly modernized; the ancient virtue hasgone out of her; she is but a monument and a memory. It is the Montereyof a dozen or fifteen years ago I write of; and of a brief sojourn afterthe briefer voyage thither. The voyage is the same; yesterday, to-dayand forever it remains unchanged. The voyager may judge if I am rightwhen I say that the Pacific coast, or the coast of California, Oregonand Washington, is the selvage side of the American continent. I believethis is evidenced in the well-rounded lines of the shore; the smoothmeadow-lands that not infrequently lie next the sea, and thecomparatively few island-fragments that are discoverable between Alaskaand Mexico. 

I made that statement, in the presence of a select few, on the promenadedeck of a small coaster then plying between San Francisco and Monterey;and proved it during the eight-hour passage, to the seeming edificationof my shipmates. Even the bluffs that occasionally jutted into the seadid the picturesque in a half-theatrical fashion. Time and the elementsseemed to have toyed with them, and not fought with them, as is theannual custom on the eastern coast of the United States. Flocks of sheepfed in the salt pastures by the water's edge; ranch-houses were perchedon miniature cliffs, in the midst of summer-gardens that even through apowerful field-glass showed few traces of wear and tear. 

And the climate? Well, the sunshine was like sunshine warmed over; andthere was a lurking chill in the air that made our quarters in the leeof the smoke-stack preferable to the circular settee in thestern-sheets. Yes, it was midsummer at heart, and the comfortablemidsummer ulster advertised the fact. 

What a long, lonesome coast it is! Erase the few evidences of life thatrelieve the monotonous landscape at infrequent intervals, and you shallsee California exactly as Drake saw it more than four centuries ago, orthe Argonaut Friars saw it a century later, and as the improved raceswill see it ages hence--a little bleak and utterly uninteresting. 

California secretes her treasures. As you approach her from the sea, youwould scarcely suspect her wealth; her lines, though fine and flowing, are not voluptuous, and she certainly lacks color. This was also a partof our steamer-talk under the lee of the smoke-stack; and while we weretalking we turned a sharp corner, ran into the Bay of Monterey, andcame suddenly face to face with Santa Cruz. 

Ah, there was richness! Perennial groves, dazzling white cottagessnow-flaking them with beauty; a beach with afternoon bathers; and twostraggling piers that had waded out into deep water and stuck fast inthe mud. A stroll through Santa Cruz does not dissipate the enchantmentusually borrowed from usurious distance; and the two-hours'-roll in thedeep furrows of the Bay, that the pilgrim to Monterey must suffer, isapt to make him regret he left that pleasant port in the hope of findingsomething pleasanter on the dim opposite shore. 

We re-embarked for Monterey at dusk, when the distant horn of the Baywas totally obscured. It is seldom more than a half-imagined point, jutting out into a haze between two shades of blue. Stars watched overus, --sharp, clear stars, such as flare a little when the wind blows. Butthe wind was not blowing for us. Showers of sparks spangled thecrape-like folds of smoke that trailed after us; the engine labored inthe hold, and the sea heaved as it is always heaving in that wide-openBay. 

In an hour we steamed into a fog-bank, so dense that even the head-lightof our ship was as a glowworm; and from that moment until we had comewithin sound of voices on the undiscovered shore, it was all like avoyage in the clouds. Whistles blew, bells rang, men shouted, and thenwe listened with hungry ears. A whistle answered us from shore--apiercing human whistle. Dim lights burned through the fog. We advancedwith fearful caution; and while voices out of the air were greeting us, almost before we had got our reckoning, we drifted up under a dark pier, on which ghastly figures seemed to be floating to and fro, bidding usall-hail. And then and there the freedom of the city was extended to us, saturated with salt-sea mist. Probably six times in ten the voyagerapproaches Monterey in precisely this fashion. 'Tis true! 'Tis pity!

Having been hoisted up out of our ship--the tide was exceeding low andthe dock high; having been embraced in turn by friends who had soakedfor an hour and a half on that desolate pier-head--for our ship wasbelated, groping her way in the fog, --we were taken by the hand and ledcautiously into the sand-fields that lie between the city and the sea. 

Of course our plans had all miscarried. Our Bachelors' Hall fell with adull thud when we heard that the chief bachelor had turned benedictthree days before. But he was present with his bride, and he knew of ahaunt that would compensate us for all loss or disappointment. Wecrossed the desert nursing a faint hope. We threaded one or two wide, weedy, silent streets; not a soul was visible, though it was but ninein the evening, --which was not to be wondered at, since the town wasdivided against itself: the one half slept, the other half still satupon the pier, making a night of it; for old Monterey had but one shockthat betrayed it into some show of human weakness. The cause was theSteam Navigation Co. The effect was a fatal fondness for tendering apublic reception to all steamers arriving from foreign ports, aftertheir sometimes tempestuous passages of from eight to ten hours. Thisinsured the inhabitants a more or less festive night about once everyweek or ten days. 

With rioutous laughter, which sounded harsh, yea, sacrilegious, in thesublime silence of that exceptional town, we were piloted into anabysmal nook sacred to a cluster of rookeries haggard in the extreme. Weapproached it by an improvised bridge two spans in breadth. The placewas buried under layers of mystery. It was silent, it was dark with theblackness of darkness; it was like an unholy sepulchre that gave forthno sound, though we beat upon its sodden door with its rusted knockeruntil a dog howled dismally on the hillside afar off. 

Some one admitted us at the last moment, and left us standing in thepitch-dark entrance while he went in search of candles, that apparentlyfled at his approach. The great room was thrown open in due season andwith solemnity. It may have been the star-chamber in the days whenMonterey was the capital of the youngest and most promising State in theUnion; but it was somewhat out of date when we were ushered into it. Abargain was hastily struck, and we repaired to damp chambers, whereevery sound was shared in common, and nothing whatever was in the leastdegree private or confidential. We slept at intervals, but in turn; sothat at least one good night's rest was shared by our company. 

[Illustration: Monterey, 1850]

At nine o' the clock next morning we were still enveloped in mist, butthe sun was struggling with it; and from my window I inspected Spanishor Mexican, or Spanish-Mexican, California interiors, sprinkled withempty tin cans, but redeemed by the more picturesque _débris_ of theearly California settlement--dingy tiles, forlorn cypresses, and arosebush of gigantic body and prolific bloom. 

We breakfasted at Simoneau's, in the inner room, with its frescos donein beer and shoeblacking by a brace of hungry Bohemians, who used tofrequent the place and thus settle their bill. Five of us sat at thatuninviting board and awaited our turn, while Simoneau hovered over astove that was by no means equal to the occasion. It was a breakfastsuch as one is reduced to in a mountain camp, but which spoils themoment it is removed from the charmed circle of ravenous foresters. Wepaid three prices for it, but that was no consolation; and it was longbefore we again entered the doors of one of the chief restaurants of oldMonterey. 

Before the thick fog lifted that morning we had scoured the town inquest of lodgings. The hotels were uninviting. At the Washington therooms were not so large as the demands of the landlord. At the St. Charles'--a summer-house without windows, save the one set in the doorof each chamber--we located for a brief season, and exchanged theliveliest compliments with the lodgers at the extreme ends of thebuilding. A sneeze in the dead of night aroused the house; and duringone of the panics which were likely to follow, I peremptorily departed, and found shelter at last in the large square chamber of an adobedwelling, the hospitable abode of one of the first families of Monterey. Broad verandas surrounded us on four sides; the windows sunk in thethick walls had seats deep enough to hold me and my lap tablet full inthe sunshine--whenever it leaked through the fog. 

Two of these windows opened upon a sandy street, beyond which was atangled garden of cacti and hollyhock and sunflowers, with a great wallabout it; but I could look over the wall and enjoy the privacy of thatsweet haunt. In that cloistered garden grew the obese roses of the farWest, that fairly burst upon their stem. Often did I exclaim: "O, for adelicate blossom, whose exquisite breath savors not of the mold, andwhose sensitive petals are wafted down the invisible currents of thewind like a fairy flotilla!" Beyond that garden, beyond the roofs ofthis town, stretched the yellow sand-dunes; and in the distance toweredthe mountains, painted with changeful lights. My other window lookeddown the long, lonesome street to the blue Bay and the faint outline ofthe coast range beyond it. 

Here I began to live; here I heard the harp-like tinkle of the firstpiano brought to the California coast; here also the guitar was touchedskillfully by her grace the august lady of the house, who scorned theEnglish tongue--the more eloquent and rhythmical Spanish prevailed underher roof. One of the members of the household was proud to recount thehistory of the once brilliant capital of the State, and I listened bythe hour to a narrative that now reads to me like a fable. 

In the year of Our Lord 1602, when Don Sebastian Viscaino--dispatched bythe Viceroy of Mexico, acting under instructions from Philip III. OfSpain--touched these shores, Mass was celebrated, the country takenpossession of in the name of the Spanish King, and the spot christenedMonterey in honor of Gaspar de Zuniga, Count of Monterey, Viceroy ofMexico. In eighteen days Viscaino again set sail, and the silence of theforest and the sea fell upon that lonely shore. That silence wasunbroken by the voice of the stranger for one hundred and sixty-sixyears. Then Gaspar de Portola, Governor of Lower California, re-discovered Monterey, erected a cross upon the shore, and went hisway. 

In May, 1770, the final settlement took place. The packet _San Antonio_, commanded by Don Juan Perez, came to anchor in the port, "which"--wrotethe leader of the expedition to Padre Francisco Palou--"is unadulteratedin any degree from what it was when visited by the expedition of DonSebastian Viscaino in 1602. After this"--the celebration of the Mass, the _Salve_ to Our Lady, and a _Te Deum, _--"the officers took possessionof the country in the name of the King (Charles III. ) our lord, whom Godpreserve. We all dined together in a shady place on the beach; the wholeceremony being accompanied by many volleys and salutes by the troops andvessels. "

When the _San Antonio_ returned to Mexico, it left at Monterey PadreJunipero Serra and five other priests, Lieutenant Pedro Fages and thirtysoldiers. The settlement was at once made capital of Alta California, and Portola appointed the first governor. The Presidio (an enclosureabout three hundred yards square, containing a chapel, store-houses, offices, residences, and a barracks) was the nucleus of the city; butthe mission was soon removed to a beautiful valley about six milesdistant, where there was more room, better shelter from the cold westwinds, and an unrivalled prospect. The valley is now known as Carmelo. 

A fort was built upon a little hill commanding the settlement, and lifebegan in good earnest. What followed? Mexico threw off the Spanish yoke;California was hence forth subject to Mexico alone. The news spread;vessels gathered in the harbor, and enormous profits were realized onthe sale and shipment of the hides of wild cattle lately roaming upon athousand hills. 

Then came gradual changes in the government; they culminated in 1846when Captain Mervin, at the head of two hundred and fifty men, raisedthe Stars and Stripes over Monterey, and a proclamation was readdeclaring California a portion of the United States. 

The Rev. Walter Colton, once chaplain of the United States frigate_Congress_, was appointed first alcalde; and the result was the erectionof a stone courthouse, which was long the chief ornament of the town;and, somewhat later, the publication of Alcalde Colton's highlyinteresting volume, entitled "Three Years in California. "

II. 

In 1829 Captain Robinson, the author of "Life in California" in the goodold mission days, wrote thus of his first sight of Monterey: "The sunhad just risen, and, glittering through the lofty pines that crowned thesummit of the eastern hills, threw its light upon the lawn beneath. Onour left was the Presidio, with its chapel dome and towering flag-staffin conspicuous elevation. On the right, upon a rising ground, was seenthe _castillo_, or fort, surmounted by some ten or a dozen cannon. Theintervening space between these two points was enlivened by the hundredscattered dwellings that form the town, and here and there groups ofcattle grazing. 

"After breakfast G. And myself went on shore, on a visit to theCommandant, Don Marian Estrada, whose residence stood in the centralpart of the town, in the usual route from the beach to the Presidio. Inexternal appearance, notwithstanding it was built of adobe--brick madeby the mixture of soft mud and straw, moulded and dried in the sun, --itwas not displeasing; for the outer walls had been plastered andwhitewashed, giving it a cheerful and inviting aspect. Like alldwellings in the warm countries of America, it was but one story inheight, covered with tiles, and occupied, in its entire premises, anextensive square. 

"Our Don was standing at his door; and as we approached, he salliedforth to meet us with true Castilian courtesy; embraced G. , shook mecordially by the hand, then bowed us ceremoniously into the _sala_. Herewe seated ourselves upon a sofa at his right. During conversation_cigarritos_ passed freely; and, although thus early in the day, aproffer was made of refreshments. "

In 1835 R. H. Dana, Jr. , the author of "Two Years before the Mast, " foundMonterey but little changed; some of the cannon were unmounted, but thePresidio was still the centre of life on the Pacific coast, and the townwas apparently thriving. Day after day the small boats plied betweenship and shore, and the population gave themselves up to the delights ofshopping. Shopping was done on shipboard; each ship was a storehouse ofattractive and desirable merchandise, and the little boats were keptbusy all day long bearing customers to and fro. 

In 1846 prices were ruinously high, as the alcalde was free toconfess--he being a citizen of the United States and a clergyman intothe bargain. Unbleached cottons, worth 6 cents per yard in New York, brought 50 cents, 60 cents, 75 cents in old Monterey. Cowhide shoes were$10 per pair; the most ordinary knives and forks, $10 per dozen; poortea, $3 per pound; truck-wheels, $75 per pair. The revenue of theseenormous imposts passed into the hands of private individuals, who hadplaced themselves by violence or fraud at the head of the Government. 

In those days a "blooded" horse and a pack of cards were thought to beamong the necessaries of life. One of the luxuries was a _rancho_ sixtymiles in length, owned by Captain Sutter in the valley of theSacramento. Native prisoners, arrested for robbery and confined in theadobe jail at Monterey, clamored for their guitars, and the nights werefilled with music until the rascals swung at half-mast. 

In August, 1846, _The Californian_, the first newspaper established onthe coast, was issued by Colton & Semple. The type and press were oncethe property of the Franciscan friars, and used by them; and in theabsence of the English _w_, the compositors on _The Californian_ doubledthe Spanish _v_. The journal was printed half in English and half inSpanish, on cigarette paper about the size of a sheet of fools-cap. Terms, $3 per year in advance; single copies, 12-1/2 cents each. Semplewas a man just suited to the newspaper office he occupied; he stood sixfeet eight inches in moccasins, was dressed in buckskin, and wore afoxskin cap. 

The first jury of the alcaldean court was empanelled in September, 1846. Justice flourished for about three years. In 1849 Bayard Taylorwrote: "Monterey has the appearance of a deserted town: few people inthe streets, business suspended, " etc. Rumors of gold had excited thecupidity of the inhabitants, and the capital was deserted; elsewhere wasmetal more attractive. The town never recovered from that shock. Itgradually declined until few, save Bohemian artists and Italian andChinese fishermen, took note of it. The settlement was obsolete in myday; the survivors seemed to have lost their memories and their interestin everything. Thrice in my early pilgrimages I asked where the Presidiohad stood; on these occasions did the oldest inhabitant and hisimmediate juniors vaguely point me to three several quarters of thetown. I believe in my heart that the pasture in front of the oldchurch--then sacred to three cows and a calf--was the cradle ofcivilization in the far West. 

[Illustration: San Carlos de Carmelo]

The original custom-house--there was no mistaking it, for it was foundedon a rock--overhung the sea, while the waves broke gently at its base, and rows of sea-gulls sat solemnly on the skeletons of stranded whalesscattered along the beach. A Captain Lambert dwelt on the first floor ofthe building; a goat fed in the large hall--it bore the complexion of astable--where once the fashionable element tripped the light fantastictoe. In those days the first theatre in the State was opened withbrilliant success, and the now long-forgotten Binghams appeared in thatlong-forgotten drama, "Putnam, or the Lion Son of '76. " Thenever-to-be-discourteously-mentioned years of our pioneers, '49 and '50, "were memorable eras in the Thespian records of Monterey, " says theguide-book. They were indeed; for Lieutenant Derby, known to theliterary world as "John Phoenix" and "Squibob, " was one of the leadingspirits of the stage. But the Thespian records came to an untimely end, and it must be confessed that Monterey no longer tempts the widelystrolling player. 

I saw her in decay, the once flourishing capital. The old convent waswindowless, and its halls half filled with hay; the barracks and thecalaboose, inglorious ruins; the Block House and the Fort, mere shadowsof their former selves. As for Colton Hall--the town-hall, named inhonor of its builder, the first alcalde, --it is a modern-lookingstructure, that scarcely harmonizes with the picturesque adobes thatsurround it. Colton said of it: "It has been erected out of the slenderproceeds of town lots, the labor of the convicts, taxes on liquor shops, and fines on gamblers. The scheme was regarded with incredulity by many;but the building is finished, and the citizens have assembled in it, andchristened it after my name, which will go down to posterity with theodor of gamblers, convicts and tipplers. " Bless his heart! he need nothave worried himself. No one seems to know or care how the building wasconstructed; and as for the name it bears, it is as savory as any. 

The church was built in 1794, and dedicated as the parish church in1834, when the missions were secularized and Carmelo abandoned. It isthe most interesting structure in the town. Much of the furniture of theold mission is preserved here: the holy vessels beaten out of solidsilver; rude but not unattractive paintings by nameless artists--perhapsby the friars themselves, --landmarks of a crusade that was gloriouslysuccessful, but the records of which are fading from the face of theearth. 

Doubtless the natives who had flourished under the nourishing care ofthe mission in its palmy days, wagged their heads wittingly when thebrig _Natalia_ met her fate. Tradition says Napoleon I. Made his escapefrom Elba on that brig. It was by the _Natalia_ that Hijar, Director ofColonization, arrived for the purpose of secularizing the missions; andhis scheme was soon accomplished. But the winds blew, and the waves roseand beat upon the little brig, and laid her bones in the sands ofMonterey. It is whispered that when the sea is still and the waterclear, and the tide very, very low, one may catch faint glimpses of theskeleton of the _Natalia_ swathed in its shroud of weeds. 

There are two attractions in the vicinity, without which I fearMonterey would have ultimately passed from the memory of man. These arethe mission at Carmelo, and the Druid grove at Cypress Point. In theedge of the town there is a cross which marks the spot where PadreJunipero Serra sang his first Mass at Monterey. It was a desolatepicture when I last saw it. It stood but a few yards from the sea, in alonely hollow. It was a favorite subject with the artists who foundtheir way thither, and who were wont to paint it upon the sea-shellsthat lay almost within reach. Now a marble statue of Junipero Serra, erected by Mrs. Leland Stanford, marks the spot. 

Six miles away, beyond the hills, above the shallow river, in sight ofthe sparkling sea, is the ruin of Carmelo. From the cross by the shoreto the church beyond the hills, one reads the sacred history of thecoast from _alpha_ to _omega_. This, the most famous, if not the mostbeautiful, of all the Franciscan missions, has suffered the common fate. In my day the roof was wanting; the stone arches were crumbling oneafter another; the walls were tufted with sun-dried grass; everywherethe hand of Vandalism had scrawled his initials or his name. The nave ofthe church was crowded with neglected graves. Fifteen governors of theterritory mingle their dust with that consecrated earth, but there wasnever so much as a pebble to mark the spot where they lie. Even thesaintly Padre Junipero, who founded the mission, and whose death wasgrimly heroic, lay until recent years in an unknown tomb. Thanks to thepious efforts of the late Father Cassanova, the precious remains ofJunipero Serra, together with those of three other friars of themission, were discovered, identified, and honorably reentombed. 

From 1770 to 1784 Padre Junipero Serra entered upon the parish recordall baptisms, marriages, and deaths. These ancient volumes are carefullypreserved, and are substantially bound in leather; the writing is boldand legible, and each entry is signed "Fray Junipero Serra, " with an oddlittle flourish of the pen beneath. The last entry is dated July 30, 1784; then Fray Francesco Palou, an old schoolmate of Junipero Serra, and a brother friar, records the death of his famous predecessor, andwith it a brief recital of his life work, and the circumstances at theclose of it. 

Junipero Serra took the habit of the order of St. Francis at the age ofseventeen; filled distinguished positions in Spain and Mexico beforegoing to California; refused many tempting and flattering honors; wasmade president of the fifteen missions of Lower California--long sinceabandoned; lived to see his last mission thrive mightily, and died atthe age of seventy--long before the fall of the crowning work of hislife. 

Feeling the approach of death, Junipero Serra confessed himself to FrayPalou; went through the Church offices for the dying; joined in the hymn_Tantum Ergo_ "with elevated and sonorous tones, " saith thechronicle, --the congregation, hearing him intone his death chaunt, wereawed into silence, so that the dying man's voice alone finished thehymn; then he repaired to his cell, where he passed the night in prayer. The following morning he received the captain and chaplain of a Spanishvessel lying in the harbor, and said, cheerfully, he thanked God thatthese visitors, who had traversed so much of sea and land, had come tothrow a little earth upon his body. Anon he asked for a cup of broth, which he drank at the table in the refectory; was then assisted to hisbed, where he had scarcely touched the pillow when, without a murmur, heexpired. 

In anticipation of his death, he had ordered his own coffin to be madeby the mission carpenter; and his remains were at once deposited in it. So precious was the memory of this man in his own day that it was withthe utmost difficulty his coffin was preserved from destruction; for thepopulace, venerating even the wooden case that held the remains of theirspiritual Father, clamored for the smallest fragment; and, though astrong body-guard watched over it until the interment, a portion of hisvestment was abstracted during the night. One thinks of this and of theoverwhelming sorrow that swept through the land when this saintlypioneer fell at the head of his legion. 

The California mission reached the height of its prosperity forty yearslater, when it owned 87, 600 head of cattle, 60, 000 sheep, 2, 300 calves, 1, 800 horses, 365 yoke of oxen, much merchandise, and $40, 000 in specie. Tradition hints that this money was buried when a certainpiratical-looking craft was seen hovering about the coast. 

This wealth is all gone now--scattered among the people who have allowedthe dear old mission to fall into sad decay. What a beautiful church itmust have been, with its quaint carvings, its star-window that seems tohave been blown out of shape in some wintry wind, and all its lineshardened again in the sunshine of the long, long summer; with itsSaracenic door!--what memories the _Padres_ must have brought with themof Spain and the Moorish seal that is set upon it! Here we have evidenceof it painfully wrought out by the hands of rude Indian artisans. Theancient bells have been carried away into unknown parts; the owl hootsin the belfry; the hills are shown of their conventual tenements; whilethe wind and the rain and a whole heartless company of iconoclasts haveit all their own way. 

Once in the year, on San Carlos' Day, Mass is sung in the onlyhabitable corner of the ruin; the Indians and the natives gather fromall quarters, and light candles among the graves, and mourn and mournand make a strange picture of the place; then they go their way, and theowl returns, and the weeds grow ranker, and every hour there is astraining among the weakened joists, and a creaking and a crumbling inmany a nook and corner; and so the finest historical relic in the landis suffered to fall into decay. Or, perhaps I should say, that was thesorry state of Carmelo in my day. I am assured that every effort is nowbeing made to restore and preserve beautiful Carmelo. 

III. 

She was a dear old stupid town in my day. She boasted but half a dozenthinly populated streets. One might pass through these streets almostany day, at almost any hour of the day, footing it all the way from thedismantled fort on the seaside to the ancient cemetery, grown to seed, at the other extremity of the settlement, and not meet half a score ofpeople. 

Geese fed in the gutters, and hissed as I passed by; cows grazing by thewayside eyed me in grave surprise; overhead, the snow-white sea-gullswheeled and cried peevishly; and on the heights that shelter theex-capital the pine-trees moaned and moaned, and often caught and heldthe sea-fog among their branches, when the little town was basking inthe sunshine and dreaming its endless dream. 

How did a man kill time in those days? There was a studio on AlvaradoStreet; it stood close to the post-office, in what may be generouslydenominated as the busiest part of the town. The studio was the focus oflife and hope and love; some work was also supposed to be done there. Itwas the headquarters of the idle and the hungry, and the seeker afterconsolation in all its varied forms. Choice family groceries wereretailed three times a day in the rear of the establishment; and therewe often gathered about the Bohemian board, to celebrate whatever ourfancy painted. Now it was an imaginary birthday--a movable feast thatcame to be very popular in our select artistic circle; again it was thepossible--dare I say probable?--sale of a picture at a quiteinconceivable price. There were always occasions enough. Would it hadbeen the case with the dinners!

The studio was the thing, --the studio, decked with Indian trophies andthe bleached bones of sea birds and land beasts, and lined with studiesin all colors under heaven. Here was the oft-lighted peace-pipe; andOrient rugs and wolf-skins for a _siesta_ when the beach yonder was ablaze of white and blinding light, that made it blessed to close one'seyes and shut out the glare--and to keep one's ears open to the lullingsong of the sea. 

Here we concocted a plan. It was to be kept a profound mystery; even thebutcher was unaware, and the baker in total darkness; as for thewine-merchant, he was as blind as a bat. We were to give the banquet andball of the season. We went to the hall of our sisters, --scarcely kinwere they, but kinder never lived, and their house was at our disposal. We threw out the furniture; we made a green bower of the adobe chamber. One window, that bore upon the forlorn vacuum of the main street, wasspeedily stained the deepest and most splendid dyes; from without, ithad a pleasing, not to say refining, medieval effect; from within, itwas likened unto the illuminated page of an antique antiphonary--inflames; yes, positively in flames!

A great board was laid the length of the room, a kind of RoundTable--with some few unavoidable innovations, such as a weak leg or two, square corners, and an unexpected depression in the centre of it, wherethe folding leaves sought in vain to join. From the wall depended theelaborate _menu_, life-size and larger; and at every course a cartoon incolor more appetizing than the town market. The emblematic owl blinkedupon us from above the door. Invitations were hastily penned and sentforth to a select few. Forgive us, Dona Jovita, if thy guest card wasredolent of tea or of brown soap; for it was penned in the privacy ofthe pantry, and either upon the Scylla of the tea-caddy or the soapyCharybdis it was sure to be dashed at last. 

It was rare fun, if I did say it from the foot of the flower-strewntable, clad in an improvised toga, while a gentleman in Joss-likevestments carved and complimented in a single breath at the top of theBohemian board. From the adjoining room came the music of hiredminstrels: the guitar, the violin, and blending voices--a piping tenorand a soft Spanish _falsetto_. They chanted rhythmically to the clatterof tongues, the ripple of laughter, and the clash of miscellaneouscutlery. 

An unbidden multitude, gathered from the highways, and the byways, loitered about the vicinity, patiently--O how patiently!--awaiting ouradjournment. The fandango naturally followed; and it enlivened the vast, bare chambers of an adjoining adobe, whose walls had not echoed suchrevelry since the time when Monterey was the chief port of the NorthernPacific, and basked in the sunshine of a prosperous monopoly. A goodportion of the town was there that evening. Shadowy forms hovered in thearbors of the rose garden; the city band appeared and rendered muchpleasing music, --though it was rendered somewhat too vigorously. Thatband was composed of the bone and sinew of the town. Oft in the daytimehad I not heard the flageolet lifting its bird-like voice over thecounter of the juvenile jeweller, who wrought cunningly in theshimmering abalone shells during the rests in his music? Did not thetrombone bray from beyond the meadow, where the cooper could not barrelhis aspiring soul? It was the French-horn at the butcher's, the fife atthe grocer's, the cornet in the chief saloon on the main street; whileat the edge of the town, from the soot and grime of the smithy, I heardat intervals the boom of the explosive drum. It was thus they respondedto one another on that melodious shore, and with an ambitious diligenceworthy of the Royal Conservatory. 

There was nothing to disturb one in the land, after the musical mania, save the clang of the combers on the long, lonely beach; the cry of thesea-bird wheeling overhead, or the occasional bang of a rifle. Even thenarrow-gauge railway, that stopped discreetly just before reaching thevillage, broke the monotony of local life but twice in the twenty-fourhours. The whistle of the arriving and departing train, the signal ofthe occasional steamer--ah! but for these, what a sweet, sad, silentspot were that! I used to believe that possibly some day the unbrokenstillness of the wilderness might again envelop it. The policy of thepeople invited it. Anything like energy or progress was discouraged inthat latitude. When it was discovered that the daily mail per NarrowGauge was arriving regularly and usually on time, it began to look likeindecent haste on the part of the governmental agents. The beauty andthe chivalry that congregated at the post-office seemed to find toospeedy satisfaction at the general delivery window; and presently themail-bag for Monterey was dropped at another village, and later cartedtwenty miles into town. The happy uncertainty of the mail's arrivalcaused the post-office to become a kind of forum, where all thegrievances of the populace were turned loose and generally discussed. 

Then it seemed possible that the Narrow Gauge might be frowned downaltogether, and the locomotive warned to cease trespassing upon thegreen pastures of the ex-capital. It even seemed possible that in courseof time all aliens might require a passport and a recommendation fromtheir last place before being permitted to enter in and enjoy thesociety of the authorities brooding over that slumberous village. 

I have seen as many as six men and a boy standing upon one of thehalf-dozen street corners of the town, watching, with a surprise thatbordered upon impertinence, a white pilgrim from San Francisco in anulster, innocently taking his way through the otherwise desertedstreets. The ulster was perhaps the chief object of interest. I haveseen three or four citizens sitting in a row, on a fence, like so manyrooks, --and sitting there for hours, as if waiting for something. Forwhat, pray? For the demented squaw, who revolved about the place, andslept out of doors in all weathers, and muttered to herself incessantlywhile she went to and fro, day after day, seeking the rest she could nothope for this side the grave? Or for Murillo, the Indian, impudentthough harmless, full of fancies and fire-water? Or for the return ofthe whale-boats, with their beautiful lateen-sails? Or for the gatheringof the Neapolitan fishermen down under the old Custom House, where theysat at evening looking off upon the Bay, and perchance dreaming of Italyand all that enchanted coast? Or for the rains that poured their suddenand swift rivulets down the wooded slopes and filled the gorges thatgutted some of the streets? Was it the love of nature, or a belief infatalism, or sheer laziness, I wonder, that preserved to Monterey thosewashouts, from two to five feet in depth, that were sometimes in thevery middle of the streets, and impassable save by an improvisedbridge--a single plank?

Ah me! It is an ungracious task to prick the bubble reputation, had Inot been dazzled with dreams of Monterey from my youth up! Was I piquedwhen I, then a citizen of San Francisco--one of the three hundredthousand, --when I read in "The Handbook of Monterey" these lines: "SanFrancisco is not too firmly fixed to fear the competition of Monterey"?

Well, I may as well confess myself a false prophet. The town fell intothe hands of Croesus, and straightway lost its identity. It is now afashionable resort, and likely to remain one for some years to come. Where now can one look for the privacy of old? Then, if one wished toforget the world, he drove through a wilderness to Cypress Point. Now'tis a perpetual picnic ground, and its fastnesses are threaded by adrive which is one of the features of Del Monte Hotel life. It wassolemn enough of yore. The gaunt trees were hung with funereal mosses;they had huge elbows and shoulders, and long, thin arms, with skeletonfingers at the ends of them, that bore knots that looked like heads andfaces such as Doré portrayed in his fantastic illustrations. They werelike giants transformed, --they are still, no doubt; for the tide offashion is not likely to prevail against them. 

They stand upon the verge of the sea, where they have stood for ages, defying the elements. The shadows that gather under their lockedbranches are like caverns and dungeons and lairs. The fox stealsstealthily away as you grope among the roots, that writhe out of theearth and strike into it again, like pythons in a rage. The coyote sitsin the edge of the dusk, and cries with a half-human cry--at least hedid in my dead day. And here are corpse-like trees, that have been nakedfor ages; every angle of their lean, gray boughs seems to implysomething. Who will interpret these hieroglyphics? Blood-red sunsetsflood this haunted wood; there is a sound as of a deep-drawn sighpassing through it at intervals. The moonlight fills it with mystery;and along its rocky front, where the sea-flowers blossom and thesea-grass waves its glossy locks, the soul of the poet and of the artistmeet and mingle between shadowless sea and cloudless sky, in theunsearchable mystery of that cypress solitude. 

So have I seen it; so would I see it again. When I think on that beachat Monterey--the silent streets, the walled, unweeded gardens--a wistfulSaturday-afternoon feeling comes over me. I hear again the incessantroar of the surf; I see the wheeling gulls, the gray sand; the brown, bleak meadows; the empty streets; the shops, tenantless sometimes--forthe tenant is at dinner or at dominos; the other shops that are lockedforever and the keys rusted away;--whenever I think of her I am remindedof that episode in Coulton's diary, where he, as alcalde, was awakenedfrom a deep sleep at the dead of night by a guard, a novice, and a slaveto duty. With no little consternation, the alcalde hastened to unbar thedoor. The guard, with a respectful salute, said: "The town, sir, isperfectly quiet. "

IN A CALIFORNIAN BUNGALOW

It was reception night at the Palace Hotel. As usual the floatingpopulation of San Francisco had drifted into the huge court of thatluxurious caravansary, and was ebbing and eddying among the multitudesof white and shining columns that support the six galleries under thecrystal roof. The band reveled in the last popular waltz, the hum of thespectators was hushed, but among the galleries might be seen pairs ofadolescent youths and maidens swaying to the rhythmical melody. We weretaking wine and cigarettes with the Colonel. He was always at home to uson Monday nights, and even our boisterous chat was suspended while theblustering trumpeters in the court below blew out their delirious music. It was at this moment that Bartholomew beckoned me to follow him fromthe apartment. We quietly repaired to the gallery among the huge vasesof palms and creepers, and there, bluntly and without a moment'swarning, the dear fellow blurted out this startling revelation: "I havemade an engagement for you; be ready on Thursday next at 4 p. M. ; meet mehere; all arrangements are effected; say not a word, but come; and Ipromise you one of the jolliest experiences of the season. " All thiswas delivered in a high voice, to the accompaniment of drums andcymbals; he concluded with the last flourish of the bandmaster's baton, and the applause of the public followed. Certainly dramatic effect couldgo no further. I was more than half persuaded, and yet, when theapplause had ceased, the dancers unwound themselves, and the low rumbleof a thousand restless feet rang on the marble pavement below, I foundvoice sufficient to ask the all-important question, "But what is thenature of this engagement?" To which he answered, "Oh, we're going downthe coast for a few days, you and I, and Alf and Croesus. A charmingbungalow by the sea; capital bathing, shooting, fishing; nice quiet timegenerally; back Monday morning in season for biz!" This was certainlysatisfactory as far as it went, but I added, by way of parenthesis, "andwho else will be present?" knowing well enough that one uncongenialspirit might be the undoing of us all. To this Bartholomew responded, "No one but ourselves, old fellow; now don't be queer. " He knew wellenough my aversion to certain elements unavoidable even in the bestsociety, and how I kept very much to myself, except on Monday nightswhen we all smoked and laughed with the Colonel--whose uncommonlycharming wife was abroad for the summer; and on Tuesday and Saturdaynights, when I was at the club, and on Wednesdays, when I did thetheatricals of the town, and on Thursdays and Fridays--but never mind!girls were out of the question in my case, and he knew that the bachelorhall where I preside was as difficult of access as a cloister. I mightnot have given my word without further deliberation, had not theimpetuous Colonel seized us bodily and borne us back into hissmoking-room, where he was about to shatter the wax on a flagon of wine, a brand of fabulous age and excellence. Bartholomew nodded to Alf, Alfpassed the good news to Croesus, for we were all at the Colonel's bycommon consent, and so it happened that the compact was made forThursday. 

That Thursday, at 4 p. M. We were on our way to the station at 4:30; thetown-houses were growing few and far between, as the wheels of thecoaches spun over the iron road. At five o'clock the green fields of thedeparted spring, already grown bare and brown, rolled up between us andthe horizon. California is a naked land and no mistake, but howbeautiful in her nakedness! An hour later we descended at School-housestation; such is the matter-of-fact pet-name given to a cluster of dullhouses, once known by some melodious but forgotten Spanish appellation. The ranch wagon awaited us; a huge springless affair, or if it hadsprings they were of that aggravating stiffness that adds insult toinjury. Excellent beasts dragged us along a winding, dusty road, overhill, down dale, into a land that grew more and more lonely; not exactly"a land where it was always afternoon, " but apparently always a littlelater in the day, say 7 p. M. Or thereabouts. We were rapidly wending ourway towards the coast, and on the breezy hill-top a white fold ofsea-fog swept over and swathed us in its impalpable snow. Oh! the chill, the rapturous agony of that chill. Do you know what sea-fog is? It isthe bodily, spiritual and temporal life of California; it is theimmaculate mantle of the unclad coast; it feeds the hungry soil, givesdrink unto the thirsting corn, and clothes the nakedness of nature. Itis the ghost of unshed showers--atomized dew, precipitated inlife-bestowing avalanches upon a dewless and parched shore; it is thegood angel that stands between a careless people and contagion; it isheaven-sent nourishment. It makes strong the weak; makes wise thefoolish--you don't go out a second time in midsummer without yourwraps--and it is altogether the freshest, purest, sweetest, mostpicturesque, and most precious element in the physical geography of thePacific Slope. It is worth more to California than all her gold, andsilver, and copper, than all her corn and wine--in short, it is simplyindispensable. 

This is the fog that dashed under our hubs like noiseless surf, filledup the valleys in our lee, shut the sea-view out entirely, and finallyleft us on a mountaintop--our last ascension, thank Heaven!--withnothing but clouds below us and about us, and we sky-high and drenchedto the very bone. 

The fog broke suddenly and rolled away, wrapped in pale and splendidmystery; it broke for us as we were upon the edge of a bluff. For somemoments we had been listening to the ever-recurring sob of the sea. There at our feet curled the huge breakers, shouldering the cliff as ifthey would hurl it from its foundation. A little further on in thegloaming was the last hill of all; from its smooth, short summit wecould look into the Delectable Land by candle light, and mark howinvitingly stands a bungalow by the sea's margin at the close of a dustyday. 

On the summit we paused; certain unregistered packages under the wagon, which had preyed at intervals upon the minds of Alf, Croesus, andBartholomew, were now drawn forth. Life is a series of surprises;surprise No. 1, a brace of long, tapering javelins havingvillainous-looking heads, i. E. , two marine rockets, with which to rendthe heavens, and notify the vassals at the bungalow of our approach. Oneof these rockets we planted with such care that having touched it off, it could not free itself, but stood stock still and with vicious furyblew off in a cloud of dazzling sparks. The dry grass flamed in acircle about us; never before had we fought fire with wildly-wavingulsters, but they prove excellent weapons in engagements of thischaracter, I assure you. Profiting by fatiguing experience, we poisedthe second rocket so deftly that it could not fail to rise. On it wehung our hopes, light enough burdens if they were all as faint as mine. With the spurt of a match we touched it, a stream of flaky gold rushedforth and then, as if waiting to gather strength, _biff_! and away shewent. Never before soared rocket so beautifully; it raked the verystars; its awful voice died out in the dim distance; with infinite graceit waved its trail of fire, and then spat forth such constellations ofvariegated stars--you would have thought a rainbow had burst into amillion fragments--that shamed the very planets, and made us thinkmighty well of ourselves and our achievement. There was still a longdark mile between us and the bungalow; on this mile were strung afordable stream, a ragged village of Italian gardeners, some monstrouslooking hay-stacks, and troops of dogs that mouthed horribly as weploughed through the velvety dust. 

The bungalow at last! at the top of an avenue of trees--and such abungalow! A peaked roof that sheltered everything, even the deepestverandas imaginable; the rooms few, but large and airy; everything wideopen and one glorious blaze of light. A table spread with the luxuriesof the season, which in California means four seasons massed in one. Flowers on all sides; among these flowers Japanese lanterns ofinconceivable forms and colors. These hung two or three deep--without, within, above, below; nothing but light and fragrance, and mirth andsong. We were howling a chorus as we drove up, and were received with amusical welcome, bubbling over with laughter from the lips of threepretty girls, dressed in white and pink--probably the whitest andpinkest girls in all California; and this was surprise No. 2. 

Perfect strangers to me were these young ladies; but, like mostconfirmed bachelors, I rather like being with the adorable sex, when Ifind myself translated as if by magic. 

We were formed of the dust of the earth--there was no denying the fact, and we speedily withdrew; but before our dinner toilets were completed, such a collection of appetizers was sent in to us as must distinguishforever the charming hostess who concocted them. I need not recall thedinner. Have you ever observed that there is no real pleasure inreviving the memory of something good to eat? Suffice it to state thatthe dinner was such a one as was most likely to be laid for us under thespecial supervision of three blooming maidens, who had come hither fourand twenty hours in advance of us for this special purpose. That nightwe played for moderate stakes until the hours were too small to bementioned. I forget who won; but it was probably the girls, who were asclever at cards as they were at everything else. We ultimately retired, for the angel of sleep visits even a Californian bungalow, though hishours are a trifle irregular. Our rooms, two large chambers, withfolding doors thrown back, making the two as one, contained four doublebeds; in one of the rooms was a small altar, upon which stood a statueof the Madonna, veiled in ample folds of lace and crowned with a coronetof natural flowers; vases of flowers were at her feet, and lightedtapers flickered on either hand. The apartment occupied by the youngladies was at the other corner of the bungalow; the servants, a good oldcouple, retainers in Alf's family, slept in a cottage adjoining. Weretired manfully; we had smoked our last smoke, and were not a littlefatigued; hence this readiness on our part to lay down the burdens andcares of the day. When the lights were extinguished the moon, streamingin at the seaward windows, flooded the long rooms. It was a gloriousnight; no sound disturbed its exquisite serenity save the subdued murmurof the waves, softened by an intervening hillock on which the cypresstrees stood like black and solemn sentinels of the night. 

[Illustration: "The Huge Court of that Luxurious Caravansary. "]

I think I must have dozed, for it first seemed like a dream--thecrouching figures that stole in Indian file along the carpet from bed tobed; but soon enough I wakened to a reality, for the Phillistines wereupon us, and the pillows fell like aerolites out of space. The air wasdense with flying bed-clothes; the assailants, Bartholomew and Alf, hisright-hand man, fell upon us with school-boy fury; they made mad leaps, and landed upon our stomachs. We grappled in deadly combat; not anarticle of furniture was left unturned; not one mattress remained uponanother. We made night hideous for some moments. We roused the ladiesfrom their virgin sleep, but paid little heed to their piteouspleadings. The treaty of peace, which followed none too soon--thepillow-cases were like fringes and the sheets were linenshreds--culminated in a round of night-caps which for potency and flavorhave, perhaps, never been equalled in the history of the vine. 

Then we _did_ sleep--the sleep of the just, who have earned their rightto it; the sleep of the horny-handed son of the soil, whose musclesrelax with a jerk that awakens the sleeper to a realizing sense that hehas been sleeping and is going to sleep again at his earliestconvenience: the sweet, intense, and gracious sleep of innocence--out ofwhich we were awakened just before breakfast time by the mostconsiderate of hostesses and her ladies of honor, who sent into us thereviving cup, without which, I fear, we could not have begun the new dayin a spirit appropriate to the occasion. 

The first day at the bungalow was Friday and, of course, a fast day; weobserved the rule with a willingness which, I trust, the recording angelmade a note of. There was a bath at the beach toward mid-day, followedby a cold collation in the shelter of a rude chalet, which served theladies in the absence of the customary bathing-machine. Lying upon rugsspread over the sand we chatted until a drowsy mood persuaded us toreturn to the bungalow and indulge in a _siesta_. It being summer, and aCalifornia summer by the sea, a huge log fire blazed upon the eveninghearth; cards and the jingle of golden counters again kept us at thetable till the night was far spent. Need I add that the ladies presenteda petition with the customary night-cap, praying that the gentlemen inthe double-chamber would omit the midnight gymnastics upon retiring, andgo to sleep like "good boys. " It had been our intention to do so; wewere not wholly restored, for the festivities of the night previous hadbeen prolonged and fatiguing. 

We began our preparations by wheeling the four bedsteads into one room. It seemed to us cosier to be sleeping thus together; indeed, it wasquite a distance from the extremity of one room to the extremity of theother. Resigning ourselves to the pillows, each desired his neighbor toextinguish the lights; no one moved to perform this necessary duty. Weslept, or pretended to sleep, and for some moments the bungalow wasquiet as the grave. In the midst of this refreshing silence a panicseized us; with one accord we sprang to arms; the pillows, stripped oftheir cases on the night previous, again darkened the air. We leapedgaily from bed to bed, and in turn, took every corner of the room bystorm; the shout of victory mingled with the cry for mercy. There wasone solitary voice for peace; it was the voice of the vexed hostess, andit was followed by the suspension of hostilities and the instantquenching of the four tapers, each blown by an individual mouth, afterwhich we groped back to our several couches in a state of charminguncertainty as to which was which. 

Saturday followed, and, of all Saturdays in the year, it chanced to bethe vigil of a feast, and therefore a day of abstinence. The ladies heldthe key of the larder, and held it, permit me to add, with a clenchedhand. It may be that all boys are not like our boys; that there arethose who, having ceased to elongate and increase in the extremities outof all proportion, are willing to fast from day to day; who no longerlust after the flesh-pots, and whose appetites are governable--but ourswere not. The accustomed fish of a Friday was welcome, but Saturday wasout of the question. "Something too much of this, " said Croesus theSybarite. "Amen!" cried the affable Alf. There was an unwonted fire inthe eye of Bartholomew when he asked for a dispensation at the hands ofthe hostess, and was refused. 

All day the maidens sought to lighten our burden of gloom; the sports inthe bath were more brilliant than usual. We adjourned to the hay-loftand told stories till our very tongues were tired. It is true thategg-nogg at intervals consoled us; but when we had awakened from arefreshing sleep among the hay, and fought a battle that ended invictory for the Amazons and our ignominious flight, we bore the scars ofburr and hay-seed for hours afterwards. Cold turkey and cranberry sauceat midnight had been promised to us, yet how very distant that seemed. Hunger cried loudly for beef and bouillon, and a strategic movement wasplanned upon the spot. 

The gaming, which followed a slim supper, was not so interesting asusual. At intervals we consulted the clock; how the hours lagged!Croesus poured his gold upon the table in utter distraction. Themaidens, who sat in sack-cloth and ashes, sorrowing for our sins, leftthe room at intervals to assure themselves that the larder was intact. We, also, quietly withdrew from time to time. Once, all three of thegirls fled in consternation--the footsteps of Bartholomew had been heardin the vicinity of the cupboard; but it was a false alarm, and the gamewas at once resumed. Now, indeed, the hours seemed to fly. To oursurprise, upon referring to the clock, the hands stood at ten minutes totwelve. So swiftly speed the moments when the light hearts of youth beatjoyously in the knowledge that it is almost time to eat!

Twelve o'clock! Cold turkey, cranberry sauce, champagne, etc. , and nomore fasting till the sixth day. Having devastated the board, we mustneeds betray our folly by comparing the several timepieces. Alf stood atfive minutes to eleven; Bartholomew some minutes behind him; Croesus, with his infallible repeater, was but 10:45; as for me, I had discreetlyrun down. The secret was out. The clock had been tampered with, and thetrusting maids betrayed. At first they laughed with us; then theysneered, and then they grew wroth, and went apart in deep dismay. Thedining-hall resounded with our hollow mirth; like the scriptural fool, we were laughing at our own folly. The ladies solemnly re-entered; ourhostess, the spokeswoman, said, with the voice of an oracle, "You willregret this before morning. " Still feigning to be merry, we wentspeedily to bed, but there was no night-cap sent to soothe us; and thelights went out noiselessly and simultaneously. 

After the heavy and regular breathing had set in--I think all slept savemyself--light footsteps were heard without. Why should one turn a key ina bungalow whose hospitality is only limited by the boundary line of thecounty surveyor? Our keys were not turned, in fact, --too late--wediscovered there were no keys to turn. In the dim darkness--the moonlent us little aid at the moment--our door was softly thrown open, andthe splash of fountains could be heard; it was the sound of many waters. As I listened to it in a half dream, it fell upon my ear most musically, and then it fell upon my nose, and eyes, and mouth; it seemed as if thewindows of heaven were opened, as if the dreadful deluge had come again. I soon discovered what it was. I threw the damp bed clothes over my headand awaited further developments. I began to think they never wouldcome--I mean the developments. Meanwhile the garden hose, in the handsof the irate maidens, played briskly upon the four quarters of theroom--not a bed escaped the furious stream. Nothing was left that wasnot saturated and soaked, sponge-full. The floor ran torrents; our bootsfloated away upon the mimic tide. We lay like inundated mummies, butspake never a word. Possibly the girls thought we were drowned; at allevents, they withdrew in consternation, leaving the hose so that itstill belched its unwelcome waters into the very centre of our drenchedapartment. 

Rising at last from our clammy shrouds, we gave chase; but thewater-nymphs had fled. Then we barricaded the bungalow, and held acouncil of war. Sitting in moist conclave, we were again assailed anddriven back to our rooms, which might now be likened to a swimming bathat low-tide. We shrieked for stimulants, but were stoutly denied, andthen we took to the woods in a fit of indignation, bordering closelyupon a state of nature. 

I thought to bury myself in the trackless wild; to end my days in thedepths of the primeval forest. But I remembered how a tiger-cat had beenlately seen emerging from these otherwise alluring haunts, and returnedat once to the open, where I glistened in the moonlight, now radiant, and shivered at the thought of the possible snakes coiling about myfeet. My disgust of life was full; yet in the midst of it I saw thereviving flames dancing upon the hearth-stone, and the click of glassesrecalled me to my senses. 

We returned in a body, a defeated brotherhood, accepting as apeace-offering such life-giving draughts as compelled us, almost againstour will, to drink to the very dregs in token of full surrender. Thenrheumatism and I lay down together, and a little child might haveplayed with any two of us. I assured my miserable companions that "I wasnot accustomed to such treatment. " Alf added that "it was more than hehad bargained for. " Bartholomew had neither speech nor languagewherewith to vent his spleen. As for the bland and blooming Croesus--hewho had been lapped in luxury and cradled in delight--it was his privateopinion, publicly expressed, that "the like of it was unknown in theannals of social history. "

[Illustration: "The Gallery Among the Huge Vases of Palms andCreepers. "]

Yet on the Sunday--our final day at the bungalow--you would have thoughtthat the gods had assembled together to hold sweet converse; and, whenwe lounged in the shadow of the invisible Ida, never looked the earthmore fair to us. The whole land was in blossom from the summit to thesea; the gardeners, as they walked among their vines, prated of Sicilyand sang songs of their Sun-land. There was no chapel at hand, and nomass for the repose of souls that had been sorely troubled; but thecharm of those young women--they were salving our wounds as women knowhow to do--and the voluptuous feast that was laid for us, when weemptied the fatal larder; the music, and the thousand arts employed torestore beauty and order out of the last night's chaos, made us betterthan new men, and it taught us a lesson we never shall forget--thoughfrom that hour to this, neither one nor the other of us, in any way, shape, or fashion whatever, has referred in the remotest degree to thateventful night in a Californian bungalow. 

PRIMEVAL CALIFORNIA

"Primeval California" was inscribed on the knapsack of the Artist, onthe portmanteau of Foster, the Artist's chum, and on the fly-leaf of thenote-book of the Scribe. The luggage of the boisterous trio was checkedthrough to the heart of the Red Woods, where a vacation camp waspitched. The expected "last man" leaped the chasm that was rapidlywidening between the city front of San Francisco and the steamer boundfor San Rafael, and approached us--the trio above referred to--with aslip of paper in his hand. It was not a subpoena; it was not a dun; itwas a round-robin of farewells from a select circle of admirers, wishingus joy, Godspeed, success in art and literature, and a safe return atlast. 

The wind blew fair; we were at liberty for an indefinite period. Inforty minutes we struck another shore and another clime. San Franciscois original in its affectation of ugliness--it narrowly escaped being abeautiful city--and its humble acceptation of a climate which is asinvigorating as it is unscrupulous, having a peculiar charm which isseldom discovered until one is beyond its spell. Sailing into theadjacent summer, --summer is intermittent in the green city of theWest, --we passed into the shadow of Mount Tamalpais, the great landmarkof the coast. The admirable outline of the mountain, however, waspartially obscured by the fog, already massing along its slopes. 

The narrow-gauge of the N. P. C. R. R. Crawls like a snake from the ferry onthe bay to the roundhouse over and beyond the hills, but seven milesfrom the sea-mouth of the Russian River. It turns very sharp corners, and turns them every few minutes; it doubles in its own trail, runs overfragile trestle-work, darts into holes and re-appears on the other sideof the mountains, roars through strips of redwoods like a rushing wind, skirts the shore of bleak Tomales Bay, cuts across the potato districtand strikes the redwoods again, away up among the saw-mills at thelogging-camps, where it ends abruptly on a flat under a hill. And what aflat it is!--enlivened with a first-class hotel, some questionablehostelries, a country store, a post-office and livery-stable, and agreat mill buzzing in an artificial desert of worn brown sawdust. 

Here, after a five hours' ride, we alighted at Duncan's Mills, hard bythe river, and with a girdle of hills all about us--high, round hills, as yellow as brass when they are not drenched with fog. In the twilightwe watched the fog roll in, trailing its lace-like skirts among thehighland forests. How still the river was! Not a ripple disturbed it;there was no perceptible current, for after the winter floods subside, the sea throws up a wall of sand that chokes the stream, and the watersslowly gather until there is volume enough to clear it. Then come therains and the floods, in which rafts of drift-wood and even great logsare carried twenty feet up the shore, and permanently lodged ininextricable confusion. 

I remember the day when we had made a pilgrimage to the coast, when fromthe rocky jaws of the river we looked up the still waters, and saw themslowly gathering strength and volume. The sea was breaking upon the barwithout; Indian canoes swung on the tideless stream, filled withindustrious occupants taking the fish that await their first plunge intosalt water. Every morning we bathed in the unpolluted waters of theriver. How fresh and sweet they are--the filtered moisture of the hills, mingled with the distillations from cedar-boughs drenched with fogs anddew!

Lounging upon the hotel veranda, turning our backs upon the lastvestiges of civilization in the shape of a few guests who dressed fordinner as if it were imperative, we were greeted with mellow heartinessby a hale old backwoodsman, a genuine representative of the primeval. Itwas Ingram, of Ingram House, Austin Creek, Red Woods, Sonoma County, Primeval California. It was he, with ranch-wagon and stalwart steeds. The Artist, who was captain-general of the forces, at once held aconsultation with Ingram, whom we will henceforth call the Doctor, forhe is a doctor--minus the degrees--of divinity, medicine, and laws, andmaster of all work; a deer-stalker, rancher, and general utility man;the father of a clever family, and the head of a primeval house. 

In half an hour we were jolting, bag and baggage, body and soul, overroads wherein the ruts were filled with dust as fine as flour, fordingtrout-streams, and winding through wood and brake. We passed the oldlogging-camp, with the hills about it blackened and disfigured for life;and the new logging-camp, with its stumps still smoldering, its steepslides smoking with the friction of swift-descending logs, the ring ofthe ax and the vicious buzz of the saw mingled with the shouts of thewoodsmen. How industry is devastating that home of the primeval!

Soon the road led us into the very heart of the redwoods, where superbcolumns stood in groups, towering a hundred and even two hundred feetabove our heads! A dense undergrowth of light green foliage caught andheld the sunlight like so much spray; the air was charged with thefragrance of wild honeysuckle and resiniferous trees; the jay-birddarted through the boughs like a phosphorous flame, screaming his joy tothe skies; squirrels fled before us; quails beat a muffled tattoo inthe brush-snakes slid out of the road in season to escape destruction. 

We soon dropped into the bed of the stream Austin Creek, and rattledover the broad, strong highway of the winter rains. We bent our headsunder low-hanging boughs, drove into patches of twilight, and out on theother side into the waning afternoon; we came upon a deserted cottagewith a great javelin driven through the roof to the cellar; it had beentorn from one of the gigantic redwoods and hurled by a last winter'sgale into that solitary home. Fortunately no one had been injured, butthe inmates had fled in terror, lashed by the driving storm. 

We came to Ingram House in the dusk, out of the solitude of the forestinto a pine-and-oak opening, the monotony of which was enlivened with afair display of the primitive necessities of life--a vegetable garden onthe right, a rustic barn on the left, a house of "shakes" in thedistance, and nine deer-hounds braying a deep-mouthed welcome at ourapproach. 

In the rises of the house on the hill-slope is a three-roomed bachelors'hall; here, on the next day, we were cozily domiciled. There were a fewguests in the homestead. The boys slept in the granary. The deer-houndsheld high carnival under our cottage, charging at intervals during thenight upon imaginary intruders. We woke to the blustering music of thebeasts, and thought on the possible approach of bear, panther, California lion, wild cat, 'coon, and polecat; but thought on it withcomposure, for the hounds were famous hunters, and there was a wholearsenal within reach. 

We were waked at 6:30, and come down to the front "stoop" of thehomestead. The structure was home-made, with rafters on the outside orinside according to the fancy of the builder; sunshine and storm hadstained it grayish brown, and no tint could better harmonize with thebackground and surroundings. In one corner of the stoop a tin wash-basinstood under a waterspout in the sink; there swung the family towels; thepublic comb, hanging by its teeth to a nail, had seen much service; apiece of brown soap lay in an _abalone_ shell tacked to the wall; asmall mirror reflected kaleidoscopical sections of the face, and made upfor its want of compass by multiplying one or another feature. We neverbefore ate at the hour of seven as we ate then; then a pipe on the frontsteps and a frolic with the boys or the dogs would follow, and digestionwas well under way before the day's work began. Then the Artistshouldered his knapsack and departed; the lads trudged through the roadto school; the women went about the house with untiring energy; themale hands were already making the anvil musical in the rustic smithy, or dragging stock to the slaughter, or busy with the thousand and oneaffairs that comprise the sum and substance of life in a self-sustainingcommunity. We were assured that were war to be declared between theouter world and Ingram House, lying in ambush in the heart of our blackforest, we might withstand the siege indefinitely. All that was needfullay at our hands, and yet, a stone's-throw away from our shake-builtcitadel, one loses himself in a trackless wood, whose glades are stilluntrodden by men, though one sometimes hears the light step of the_bronco_ when Charlie rides forth in search of a strong bull. All workwas like play there, because of a picturesque element which predominatedover the practical. Wood-cutting under the window of the best room, trying out fat in a caldron or an earth-oven against our cottage, dragging sunburnt straw in a rude sledge down the hill-side road, shoeing a neighbor's horse in a circle of homely gossips, hunting tosupply the domestic board at the distant market--is this all that Adamand the children of Adam suffer in his fall?

At noon a clarion voice resounded from the kitchen door and sent theechoes up and down the creek. It was the hostess, who, having preparedthe dinner, was bidding the guests to the feast. The Artist came inwith his sketch, the Chum with his novel, the Scribe with his note-book, followed by the horny-handed sons of toil, whose shoulders were a littlerounded and whose minds were seldom, if ever, occupied with any lifebeyond the hills that walled us in. We sat down at a camp board and atewith relish. The land was flowing with milk and honey; no sooner was thepitcher drained or the plate emptied than each was replenished by thewilling hands of our hostess or her boys. 

Another smoke under the stoop followed, and then, perhaps, a doze at thecottage, or in one of the dozen rocking-chairs about the house, or onthe rustic throne hewn from a stump in the grove between the house andthe barn. The sun flooded the caņon with hot and dazzling light; the airwas spiced with the pungent odor of shrubs; it was time to rest a littlebefore beginning the laborious sports of the afternoon. Later, we allwandered on the banks of the creek and were sure to meet at theswimming-pool about four o'clock. Meanwhile the Artist has laid inanother study. Foster has finished his tale, and is rocking in a hammockof green boughs; the Scribe has booked a half-dozen fragmentarysentences that will by and by grow into an article, and the boys havecome home from school. 

By and by we wanted change; the monotony of town life is always more orless interesting; the monotony of country life palls after a season. Change comes over us in a most unexpected guise. Our caņon was deckedwith the flaming scarlet of the poison-oak; these brilliant bits offoliage are the high-lights in almost every California landscape, andmust satisfy our love of color, in the absence of the Eastern autumnalleaf. The gorgeous shrubs stand out like burning bushes by the roadside, on the hill-slope, in the forest recesses, and almost everywhere. TheArtist's chum gave evidence of a special susceptibility to the poison bya severe attack that prostrated him utterly for a while. Yet he stood byus until his vacation came to an end, and, to the last, there was nocomplaint heard from this martyr to circumstances. 

One day he left us--on mule-back, with nine dogs fawning upon hisstirrup, and amid a hundred good-byes wafted to him from the house, thesmithy, the barn, and the swimming-pool. He had orders to send in theKid, or his successor, immediately upon his arrival at the Bay. We mustneeds have some one to indulge, some one whose interests were notinvolved in the primeval farther than the pleasure it afforded for thehour. The Kid was the very thing--a youngster with happiness in heart, luster in his eye, and nothing more serious than peach-down on his lip;yet there was gravity enough in his composition to carry him beneath themere surface of men and things. The Kid drove in one night with rifletall as himself, fishing-tackle, and entomological truck, wild withenthusiasm and hungry as a carp. 

What days followed! Our little entomologist chased scarlet-wingeddragon-flies and descanted on the myriad forms of insect-life withpremature accomplishment. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings" weheard revelations not unmixed with the ludicrous superstitions of thenursery. 

There is a school-house a mile distant, on the forks of the creek; wevisited it one Friday, and saw six angular youths, the sum total of theyoung ideas within range of the instructress, spelled down inbroadsides; and heard time-honored recitations delivered in the same oldsing-song that could only have been original with the sons of our firstparents. The school-mistress, with a sun-bonnet that buried her facefrom the world, passed Ingram's ten times a week, footing it silentlyalong the dusty road, lunch-pail in hand. She lives in a lonely cabin onthe trail to the wilderness over the hill. 

The Kid sketched a little; indeed, the artistic fever spread to thegranary, where the boys spent some hours of each day restoring, not tosay improving, the tarnished color of certain face-cards of an imperfecteuchre deck, the refuse of the palette being carefully secreted to thisend; we never knew at what moment we might sit upon the improvisedcolor-box of some juvenile member of the family. 

But hunting was our delectable recreation; the Doctor would lead off ona half-broken _bronco_, followed by a select few from the house or thefriendly camps, Fred bringing up the rear with a pack-mule. This was thechief joy of the hounds; the old couple grew young at the scent of thetrail, and deserted their whining progeny with Indian stoicism. Twonights and a day were enough for a single hunt, --one may in that timescour the rocky fortresses of the Last Chance, or scale the formidableslopes of the Devil's Ribs. 

The return from the hunt was a scene of picturesque interest: theapproach of the hunters at dusk, as they emerged one after another fromthe dark wood; the pack-mule prancing proudly under a stark buckweighing one hundred and thirty-three pounds, without its vitals; thebaby fawn slain by chance (for no one would acknowledge the criminalslaughter); the final arrival of the fagged, sore-footed dogs, who werewildly greeted by the puppies, and kissed on the mouth and banged aboutby many a playful paw; the grouping under the trees in front ofBachelors' Hall, where the buck was slung, head downward among greenleaves, and with stakes crossed between the gaping ribs; the light ofthe flickering lantern; the dogs supping blood from the ground where ithad dripped; the satisfaction of the hunters; the admiration of thewomen; the wild excitement of the boys, who all talked at once, at thetop of their voices, with gestures quicker than thought;--this was theCarnival of the Primeval. 

One night, the Kid set out for the stubble-field and lay in wait forwild rabbits; when he came in with his hands full of ears, the glow ofmoonlight was in his eye, the flush of sunset on his cheek, the riotousblood's best scarlet in his lips, and his laugh was triumphant; with adiscarded hat recalled for camp-duty, a blue shirt open at the throat, hair very much tumbled, and no thoughts of self to detract from theabsolute grace of his pose. 

But all hunting-parties were not so successful. One of seven came homeempty-handed and disgusted. It became necessary, while the unluckyhuntsmen were under our roof, to give them festive welcome. Fred drewout his fiddle; the Doctor gathered his strength and shook as lively ashoe on the sanded floor of the best room as one will hear the clang ofin many a day. Clumsy joints grew supple; heavy boots made the splintersfly; a fellow-townsman, like ourselves on a vacation tour, jigged withthe inimitable grace of a trained dancer. How few of our muscles areaware of the joy of full development! From the wall of the best room the"Family of Horace Greeley, " in mezzotint, looked down through cloudedglass and a veneered frame. The county map hung _vis-ā-vis_. A familyrecord, wherein a pale infant was cradled in saffron, and schooled inpink, passing through a rainbow-tinted life that reached the climax ofcolor at the scarlet and gold bridal, and ended in a sea-green grave;this record, with a tablet for appropriate inscriptions under each epochin the family history, was still further enriched with lids of stainedisinglass carefully placed over the domestic calendar, as much as tosay, "What is written here is not for the public eye. " On the triangularshelf in the corner, stood the condensed researches of all Arcticexplorers, in one obese volume; its twin contained the revelations ofAfrican discoveries boiled down and embellished with numberless cuts; aFamily Physician, one volume of legislative documents, and three straymagazines, with a Greek almanac, completed the library. So, even in theprimeval state, we were not without food for our minds as well asexercise for our muscles. After a time, even the dance ceased to attractus. The Artist had lined the walls of his chamber with brilliantsketches; the kid clamored for home. 

I suppose we might have tarried a whole summer and still found some turnin the brook, some vista in the wood, some cluster of isolated trees, tohold us entranced; for the peculiar glory of the hour transfiguredthem, and the same effect was never twice repeated. Moreover, we at lastgrew intolerant of one great annoyance. You all have known it as we knewit, and doubtless endured it with as little grace. Is there anythingmore galling than the surpassing impudence of country flies? We resolvedto return to town, and returned close upon the heels of our resolution. Again we threaded the dark windings of the wood, and bade farewell toevery object that had become endeared to us. We wondered how soon changewould lay its hand upon this primeval beauty. We approached thelogging-camp. Presto! in the brief interval since our first glimpse ofthe forests above it, the hills had been shorn of their antique harvest, and the valley was a place of desolation and of death. 

It seemed incredible that the dense growth of gigantic trees could be sosoon dragged to market. There was a famous tree--we saw the stump stillbleeding and oozing up--which, three feet from the ground, measuredeleven and a half feet one way by fourteen feet the other. When its doomwas sealed, a path was cut for it and a soft bed made for it to lie on. The land was graded, and covered with a cushion of soft boughs. Had thetree fallen on uneven ground, it would have been shattered; if it hadswerved to right or left, nothing but fire could have cleared thewrecks. 

The making of the death-bed of this monster cost Mrs. Duncan fortydollars. Then the work began. An ax in the hands of a skillfulwood-cutter threw the tree headlong to the earth. Then it was sawedacross, yielding eighteen logs, each sixteen feet in length, with adiameter of four feet at the smallest end. The logs were put uponwheels, and run over a light trestle-work to the mill, drawn thither bya ridiculous dummy, which looked not unlike an old-fashioned tavernstore on its beam-ends, with an elbow in the air. At the mill, it wassawed into eighty thousand feet of marketable lumber. 

Reaching the forest, on our way to the Mills, we found the river hadrisen so that ten miles from the mouth we were obliged to climb upon thewagon-seats, and hold our luggage above high-water mark. 

At Duncan's, on the home stretch, we made our final pilgrimage, to awild glen over the Russian River, where, a few weeks before, theBohemian Club had held high jinks. The forest had been a scene ofenchantment on that midsummer night; but now the tents were struck, theJapanese lanterns were extinguished, and nothing was left to tell thetale but the long tables of rough deal, where we had feasted. They werecovered with leaves and dust; spiders had draped them with filmy robes. The quail piped, the jay-bird screamed, the dove sobbed, and a slimsnake, startled at the flight of a bounding hare, glided away among therustling leaves. So soon does this new land recover the primeval beautyof eternal youth. 

INLAND YACHTING

When your bosom friend seizes you by the arm, and says to you in thatseductive sotto voce which implies a great deal more than is confessed, "Come, let us go down to the sea in ships, and do business in the greatwaters, " you generally go, if you are not previously engaged. At least, I do. 

Much has been said in disfavor of yachting in San Francisco Bay. It isinland yachting to begin with. The shelving shores prevent theintroduction of keel boats; flat and shallow hulls, with a great breadthof beam, something able to battle with "lumpy" seas and carry plenty ofsail in rough weather, is the more practical and popular type. Atlanticyachts, when they arrive in California waters, have their rigging cutdown one-third. Schooners and sloops with Bermudian mutton-leg sailsflourish. A modification of the English yawl is in vogue; but largesloops are not handled conveniently in the strong currents, the chopseas, the blustering winds, the summer fogs that make the harbor one ofthe most treacherous of haunts for yachtsmen. 

Think of a race when the wind is blowing from twenty-five tothirty-five miles an hour! The surface current at the Golden Gate runssix miles per hour and the tide-rip is often troublesome; but there isample room for sport, and very wild sport at times. The total area ofthe bay is four hundred and eighty square miles, and there are hundredsof miles of navigable sloughs, rivers, and creeks. One may start fromAlviso, and sail in a general direction, almost without turning, onehundred and fifty-five miles to Sacramento city. During the voyage he ispretty sure to encounter all sorts of weather and nearly every sort ofclimate, from the dense and chilly fogs of the lower bay to thesemi-tropics of the upper shores, where fogs are unknown, and where thewinds die away on the surface of beautiful waters as blue as the Bay ofNaples. 

There are amateur yachtsmen, a noble army of them, who charter a craftfor a day or two, and have more fun in a minute than they can recoverfrom in a month. I have sailed with these, at the urgent request of onewho has led me into temptation more than once, but who never deserted mein an evil hour, even though he had to drag me out of it by the heels. Iam at this moment reminded of an episode which still tickles my memory, and, much as a worthy yachtsman may scorn it, I confess that this momentis more to me than that of any dash into deep water which I can atpresent recall. 

It was a summer Saturday, the half-holiday that is the reward of aweek's hard labor. With the wise precaution which is a prominentcharacteristic of my bosom friend, a small body of comrades was gatheredtogether on the end of Meigg's Wharf, simultaneously scanning, withvigilant eyes, the fleets of sailing crafts as they swept into view onthe strong currents of the bay. It was a little company of youths, sickof the world and its cares, and willing, nay eager, to embark for otherclimes. They came not unfurnished. I beheld with joy numerous demijohnswith labels fluttering like ragged cravats from their long necks;likewise stacks of vegetables, juicy joints, fruits, and more demijohns, together with a small portable iceberg; blankets were there, also guns, pistols, and fishing tackle. If one chooses to quit this world and itsfollies, one must go suitably provided for the next. Experience teachesthese things. 

The breeze freshened; the crowd grew impatient; more fellows arrived;another demijohn was seen in the distance swiftly bearing down upon usfrom the upper end of the wharf, and at this moment a dainty yachtskimmed gracefully around the point of Telegraph Hill, picking her wayamong the thousand-masted fleet that whitened the blue surface of thebay, and we at once knew her to be none other than the "Lotus, " a crackyacht, as swift as the wind itself. In fifteen minutes there was alocker full of good things, and a deck of jolly fellows, and when wecast off our bow-line, and ran up our canvas, we were probably theneatest thing on the tide. I know that I felt very much like a layfigure in somebody's marine picture, and it was quite wonderful tobehold how suddenly we all became sea-worthy and how hard we tried toprove it. 

A heavy bank of cloud was piled up in the west, through which stole longbars of sunshine, gilding the leaden waves. The "Lotus" bent lovingly tothe gale. Some of us went into the cabin, and tried to brace ourselvesin comfortable and secure corners--item--there are no comfortable orsecure seats at sea, and there will be none until there is a revolutionin ship-building. Our yachting afforded us an infinite variety ofexperience in a very short time; we had a taste of the British Channelas soon as we were clear of the end of the wharf. It was like roundingGibraltar to weather Alcatraz, and, as we skimmed over the smooth floodin Raccoon Straits, I could think of nothing but the little end of theGolden Horn. Why not? The very name of our yacht was suggestive of theOrient. The sun was setting; the sky deeply flushed; the distance highlyidealized; homeward hastened a couple of Italian fishing boats, withtheir lateen sails looking like triangular slices cut out of the fullmoon; this sort of thing was very soothing. We all lighted ourcigarettes, and lapsed into dreamy silence, broken only by the plash ofripples under our bow and the frequent sputter of matches quitenecessary to the complete consumption of our tobacco. 

[Illustration: Meigg's Wharf in 1856]

About dusk our rakish cutter drifted into the shelter of the hills alongthe north shore of the bay, and with a chorus of enthusiastic cheers wedropped anchor in two fathoms of soft mud. We felt called upon to singsuch songs as marines are wont to sing upon the conclusion of a voyage, and I believe our deck presented a tableau not less picturesque thanthat in the last act of "Black-eyed Susan. " Susan alone was wanting toperfect our nautical happiness. 

How charming to pass one's life at sea, particularly when it is a calmtwilight, and the anchor is fast to the bottom: the sheltering shoresseem to brood over you; pathetic voices float out of the remote anddeepening shadows; and stars twinkle so naturally in both sea and skythat a fellow scarcely knows which end he stands on. 

I have preserved a few leaves from a log written by my bosom friend. Ipresent them as he wrote them, although he apparently had "HappyThoughts" on the brain, and much Burnand had well nigh made him mad. 

THE LOG OF THE "LOTUS"

9 p. M. --Dinner just over; part of our crew desirous of fishing duringthe night; hooks lost, lines tangled, no bait; a row by moonlightproposed. 

10 p. M. --The Irrepressibles still eager to fish; lines untangled, hooksdiscovered; two fellows despatched with yawl in search of bait; a row bymoonlight again proposed; we take observation--no moon!

11 p. M. --Two fellows returning from shore with hen; hen very tough andnoisy; tough hens not good for bait; fishing postponed till daybreak;moonlight sail proposed as being a pleasant change; still no moon; halfthe crew turn in for a night's rest; cabin very full of half-the-crew. 

Midnight. --Irrepressibles dance sailor's hornpipe on deck; half-the-crewbelow awake from slumbers, and advise Irrepressibles to renew search forbait. 

12:30 a. M. --Irrepressibles return to shore for bait. Loud breathing incabin; water swashing on rocks along the beach; very picturesque, but nomoon yet; voice in the distance says "Halloa!" Echo in the otherdistance replies, "Halloa yourself, and see how you like it!"

1 a. M. --Irrepressibles still absent on shore; a dog barks loudly in thedark; a noise is heard in a far away hen-coop--Irrepressibles lookingdiligently for bait. 

1:30 a. M. --Dog sitting on the shore howling; very heavy breathing in thecabin; noise of oars in the rowlocks; music on the water, chorus ofyouthful male voices, singing "A smuggler's life is a merry, merry, life. " Subdued noise of hens; dog still howling; no moon yet; more noiseof hens, bait rapidly approaching. 

2 a. M. --Irrepressibles try to row yawl through sternlights of "Lotus";grand collision of yawl at full speed and a rakish cutter at anchor. Profane language in the cabin; sleepy crew, half awake, rush up thehatchway, and denounce Irrepressibles. Irrepressibles sing "Smuggler'sLife, " etc. ; terrific noise of hens; half-the-crew invite theIrrepressibles to "be as decent as they can. " No moon yet; everybodypacked in the cabin. 

2:30 a. M. --Sudden squall. "Lotus, " as usual, bends lovingly to the gale;dramatic youth in his bunk says, in deep voice, "No sleep till morn!"More dramatic youths say, "I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more'. " Verydeep voice says, "Macbeth hath mur-r-r-r-dered sleep!" General confusionin the cabin. Old commodore of the "Lotus" says, "Gentlemen, a littleless noise, if you please. " Noise subsides. 

3 a. M. --Irrepressibles propose sleeping in binnacle; unfortunatediscovery--no binnacle on board. Half-the-crew turn over, and suggestthat the Irrepressibles take night-caps, and retire anywhere. Moved andseconded, That the Irrepressibles take two night-caps, and retire in abody--item: two heads better than one, two night-caps ditto, ditto. 

3:30 a. M. --Commotion in cabin. Irrepressibles find no place to lay theirweary heads. Moonlight sail proposed; observations on deck--no moon;squall in the distance; air very chilly. Irrepressibles retire in abody, and take night-caps. Song by Irrepressibles, "A Smuggler's Life. "Half-the-crew sit up and throw boots. Irrepressibles assaulthalf-the-crew, and take bunks by storm; great confusion; old commodoreof the "Lotus" says, "Gentlemen had better sleep a little, so as to bein trim for fishing at daybreak, " night-caps all round; order restored;chorus of subdued voices, "A Smuggler's Life. "

4 a. M. --Signs of daybreak; thin blue mist over the water; white sea-birdoverhead, with bright light on its breast; flocks bleating on shore;sloop becalmed under the lee of the land; fishermen casting nets; morefishermen right under them, casting nets upside down. Everything veryfresh and shining; feel happy; think we must look like marine picture bysomebody. 

4:30 a. M. --Commodore of the "Lotus" comes on deck, and takes anobservation; all favorable; commodore draws bucket of water out of thesea and makes toilet, white beard of the commodore waves gently in thebreeze; fine-looking old sea-dog that commodore of the "Lotus. "

Sunday Morning. --All quiet; air very clear and bracing. Shore resemblesnew world. Feel like Christopher Columbus discovering America. Peacefuland happy emotions animate bosom; think I hear Sabbath bells--evidentlydon't: no Sabbath bells anywhere around. Penitentiary of San Quentin inthe distance; look at San Quentin, and feel emotion of sadness stealover me; moral reflection to try and avoid San Quentin as long aspossible. 

5 a. M. --Noise in cabins; boots flying in the air; cries for mercy;reconciliation and eye-openers all round. Everybody on deck; next minuteeverybody overboard bathing; water very cold; teeth chattering;something warming necessary for all hands. Yawl goes out fishing; twosmall boats at the disposal of Irrepressibles; a row by sunlight; nomoon last night; funny boy says, "Bring moon along next time!" Everybodysees San Quentin at the same moment; half-the-crew advise Irrepressiblesto "go home at once. " Cries of "hi yi. " Irrepressibles say "they willinform on half-the-crew when they get there"; disturbance on deck inconsequence; Commodore suggests a new search for bait; order restored;new search for bait instituted. Three fellows sing "Father, come home, "and look toward San Quentin. Bad jokes on the prison every ten minutesthroughout the day. Small fleet of stern-wheel ducks come alongside forbreakfast; ducks in great danger of the galley; flock of pelicans, withtremendous bowsprits, fly overhead; pistol-shot carries away tailfeathers of pelican; order restored. 

8 a. M. --Irrepressibles propose naval engagement; three small boats armedand equipped for the fray. Irrepressibles routed; some taken prisoners;great excitement; quantities of water dashed in all directions; boatsrapidly filling; two fellows overboard; cries for help, "fellows can'tswim a stroke"; intense excitement; boat sinks in five feet of water andtwo feet of mud; the fellows brought on board to be wrung out. Irrepressibles hang everything in the rigging to dry. Imagination takesher accustomed flight; good study of nude Irrepressibles in greatnumber; think we must resemble the barge of Cleopatra on the Nile!unlucky thought; no Cleopatra on board. Subject reconsidered; luckyfancy--the Greek gods on a yachting cruise. Sun very hot; another bathall round; a drop of something, for fear of catching cold; the Greekgods on deck indulge in negro dances; two men on shore look on, andwonder what's up. Sun intensely hot; Greek gods turn in for a squaresleep!

It becomes necessary to suppress the bosom friend, who, it issuperfluous to state, was one of the leaders of the Irrepressibles onthe memorable occasion--and the balance of his log is consigned to thelocker of oblivion. 

The cruise of the "Lotus" had its redeeming features, though they wereprobably unrecorded at the time. There was fishing and boating; rambleson shore over the grassy hills; a search for clams and a goodold-fashioned clam bake; to which the sharpest appetites did amplejustice; and there were quiet fellows, who stole apart from the riotersand had hours of solid satisfaction. You may have rocked in a smallskiff yourself, casting your line in deep water, waiting and watchingfor the cod to bite. It is pleasant sculling up to a distant point, andsounding by the way so as to get off the sand and over the pebbly bottomas soon as possible. It is pleasant to cast anchor and float a few rodsfrom shore, where the rocks are eaten away by the tides of numberlesscenturies, where the swallows build and the goats climb, and the scruboaks look over into the sea, with half their hairy roots trailing in theair. It is less pleasant to thread your hook with a piece of writhingworm that is full of agonizing expression, though head and tail are bothmissing and writhing on their own hooks, which are also attached to yourline. I wonder if one bit of worm on a hook recognizes a joint of itselfon the next hook, and says to it, in its own peculiar fashion, "Well, are you alive yet?"

The baiting accomplished, with a great flourish you throw your sinker, and see it bury itself in the muddy water; then you listen intently, for the least suggestion of a disturbance down there at the other end ofthe line; the sinker thumps upon this rock and the next one, drops intoa hole and gets caught for a moment, but is loosened again, and then asort of galvanic shock thrills through your body; on guard! if you wouldsave your bait; another twinge, fainter than the first, and at last aregular tug, and you haul in your line, which is jerking incessantly bythis time. The next moment the hooks come to the surface, and on one ofthem you find a Lilliputian fish that is not yet old enough to feedhimself, and was probably caught by accident. 

Perhaps you haul in your line as fast as you can, bait it and throw itin again as rapidly as convenient--for this is the sport that fishermenlove to boast of; perhaps you rock in your boat all day, and draw but ahalf-dozen of these shiners out before their time, and waste yourprecious worms to no purpose. 

It's hungry work, isn't it? and the summons to dinner that is by-and-bysounded from the yacht is a pleasing excuse for deserting so profitlessa task. The right thing to do, however, is to put on an appearance ofimmense success whenever a rival skiff comes within hail. You hold upyour largest fish several times in succession, so as to delude theanxious inquirers in the other boat, who will of course think you have adozen of those big cod with a striking family resemblance. It is a verysuccessful ruse; all fishermen indulge in it, and you have as good aright to play the pantomime as they. 

By-and-by we are glad to think of a return to town. Why is it thatpleasure excursions seem to ravel out? They never stop short after abrilliant achievement nor conclude with an imposing tableau; they dieout gradually. Someone gets out here, some-one else falls off there, andthere is a general running down of the machinery that has propelled thefestival up to the last moment. They flatten unmistakably, and it isalmost a pity that some sort of climax cannot be engaged for eachoccasion, in the midst of which everyone should disappear, in red fireand a blaze of rockets. 

Our yachting cruise was very jolly. We hauled in our lines and ouranchors, and spread our canvas, while the wind was brisk and the eveningwas coming on; white-caps danced and tumbled all over the bay. It lookedstormy far out in the open sea as we crossed the channel; thin tonguesof fog were lapping among the western hills, as though the town wereabout to be devoured by some ghostly monster, and presently it was ofcourse. The spray leaped half-way up our jib, and our fore-sail wasdripping wet as we neared the town; there was a rolling up of blankets, and a general clearing out of the debris that always accumulates insmall quarters. Everybody was a little tired, and a little hungry, anda little sleepy, and quite glad to get home again, and when the "Lotus"landed us on the old wharf at the north end of the town, we crept homethrough the side streets for decency's sake. 

The young "Corinthian" would scorn to recognize a yachting exploit suchas I have depicted. The young "Corinthian" owns his yacht, and lives init a great part of the summer. He is the first to make his appearanceafter the rainy season has begun to subside, and the last to be driveninto winter quarters at Oakland or Antioch, where the fleet is mooredduring four or five months of the year. The "Corinthian" paints his boathimself, and is an adept at every art necessary to the completeness ofyachting life. He can cook, sail his boat, repair damages of almostevery description; he sketches a little, writes a little, and is, infact, an amphibious Bohemian, the life of the regatta, whose enthusiasmgoes far towards sustaining the healthful and amiable rivalry of the twoyachting clubs. 

These clubs have charming club-houses at Saucelito, where many a "hop"is given during the summer, and where, on one occasion, "H. M. S. Pinafore" was sung with great effect on the deck of the "Vira, " anchoreda few rods from the dock; the dock was, for the time being, transformedinto a dress-circle. Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B. , made his entree in asteam launch, and all the effects were highly realistic. The only hitchin the otherwise immensely successful representation was theimpossibility of securing a moon for the second act. 

The annual excursion of the two clubs is one of the social events of theyear. The favorite resort is Napa, a pretty little town in the lap of alovely valley, approached by a narrow stream that winds through meadowlands and scattered groves of oak. The yachts are nearly all of themthere, from twenty-six to thirty, a flock of white wings that skim thewaters of San Pablo Bay, upward bound. At Vallejo and Mare Island theyexchange salutes, abreast of the naval station, and enter the mouth ofNapa Creek; it is broad and marshy for a time, but soon grows narrow, and very crooked. More than once as we sailed we missed stays, anddrifted broadside upon a hayfield, and were obliged to pole one anotheraround the sharp turns in the creek; it is then that cheers and jeerscome over the meadows to us, from the lesser craft that are sailingbreast deep among the waving corn. All this time Napa, our destination, is close at hand, but not likely to be reached for twenty or thirtyminutes to come. We turn and turn again, and are lost to sight among thetrees, or behind a barn, and are continually greeted by the citizens, who have come overland to give us welcome. 

Riotous days follow: a ball that night, excursions on the morrow, andon the second night a concert, perhaps two or three of them, on boardthe larger vessels of the fleet. We are lying in a row, against a longcurve of the shore; chains of lanterns are hung from mast to mast, therigging is gay with evergreens and bunting. 

The revelry continues throughout the night; serenaders drift up and downthe stream at intervals until daybreak, when a procession is formed, asteamer takes us in tow, and we are dragged silently down the tide, inthe grey light of the morning. At Vallejo, after a toilet and abreakfast, which is immensely relished, we get into position. Every eyeis on the Commodore's signal; by-and-by it falls, bang goes a gun, andin a moment all is commotion. The sails are trimmed, the light canvasset, and away flies the fleet on the home stretch, to dance for an houror two in the sparkling sunshine of San Pablo Bay, then plunge into thetumbling sea in the lower harbor, and at last end a three days' cruisewith unanimous and hearty congratulations. 

A week ago I could have added here that in the annals of the yacht clubsof San Francisco there has never been a fatal accident, never adrowning, nor a capsizing, nor a wreck, and this covers a period ofthirteen years; alas! in a single day, on a cruise such as I have beenwriting of, there was a shocking death. One yacht nearly foundered, butfortunately escaped into smooth water, another was dashed upon therocks, and is probably a total wreck; while a third lost hercentre-board over a mud bank, where it buried itself, and held thelittle craft a helpless prisoner; the crew and guests of the latter tookto the small boats, pulled three miles in a squall, and were rescued bya passing steamer when they were all drenched to the skin, and well-nighexhausted. 

You see that inland yachting is not child's play, nor are these inlandyachts without their romantic records. The flag of the San Franciscoyacht club has floated among the South Sea Islands; one of its boats hasbeaten the German and English types in their own waters; one has been asfar as the Australian seas; one is a pearl fisher in the Gulf ofCalifornia, and another is coquetting with the doldrums along theMexican coast. They are staunch little beauties all, and it would beneither courteous nor healthful to think otherwise in the presence ofinland yachtsmen. 

[Illustration: Telegraph Hill, 1855]

IN YOSEMITE SHADOWS

"Yosemite, Sept. --: Come at once--the year wanes; would you see thewondrous transformation, the embalming of the dead Summer in windings ofpurple and gold and bronze--come quickly, before the white pall coversit--delay no longer. The waters are low and fordable, the snowsthreaten, but the hours are yet propitious; and such a welcome waits youas Solomon in all his glory could not have lavished on Sheba'sapproaching queen. * * *"

There was much more of the same sort of high-toned epistolary rhetoric, written and sent by a dear hand, whose fanciful pen seemed touched bythe ambrosial tints of Autumn. So the year was going out in a gorgeouscarnival, before the Lent-like solemnity of Winter was assumed. 

I had only two things to consider now: First, was it already too late tohasten thither, and enjoy the splendid spectacle so freely offered andso alluring; secondly, could I, if yet in time, venture so boldly uponthe edge of Winter, and risk the possibility--nay, probability--of beingsnow-bound for four or six months, 30 miles from any human habitation?

I did not long consider. I felt every moment that the soul of Summer waspassing. I scented the ascending incense of smoking and cracklingboughs. What a requiem was being chanted by all the tremulous and brokenvoices of Nature! Would I, could I, longer forbear to join thepassionate and tumultuous _miserere_? It seemed that I could not, forgathering about me the voluminous furs of Siberia, I bade adieu tofriends, not without some forebodings awakened by the admonitions of myelders, then, dropping all the folly of the world, like a monk I wentsilently and alone into the monastery of a Sierran solitude, resigned, trusting, prayerful. 

What an entering it was! With slow, devotional steps I approached thevalley. There was a thin veil of snow over the upper trail. It wassmooth and unbroken as I came upon it, following the blazed trees in myway. Footprints of bear and fox, squirrel and coyote, were traceable. The owl hooted at me, and the jay shot past me like a blue flash oflight, uttering her prolonged, shrill cry. As for the owl, I could notsee him, but I heard him at startling intervals give the challenge, "Whoare you?" so I advanced and gave the countersign. I don't believe it wasfor his grave face alone that the owl was chosen symbol of Wisdom. 

Not too soon came the steep and perilous descent into the abysmal depthsof the mountain fastness. It is a shame that pilgrims who come upthither do not time their steps so as to reach this _Ultima Thule_ ofold times and ways at sunset. Then the magnificence of the spectacleculminates. That new world below there is illuminated with the softtints of Eden. What unutterable fullness of beauty pervades all. Theforests--those moss-like fields are forests, and mighty ones, too--areall aflame with the burnished gold of sunset, brightening the gold ofautumn; for gold twice refined, as it were, gilds the splendidlandscape. Only think of that picture, shining through the mellow hazeof Indian Summer, and flashing with the lambent glimmer of a myriadglassy leaves. You can not see them moving, yet they twinkleincessantly, and the warm air trembles about them while you hangbewildered from a toppling parapet, four thousand feet above them; birdsswing under you in mid-air, streams leap from the sharp cliff, and reelin that sickening way through the air that your brain whirls after them. One is tired, anyhow, by the time he has reached this far, and a nightcamp in the cool rim of this world-to-come is just the panacea for anysort of weariness. 

Take my advice: Sleep on it, and drop down on the wings of the morning, while the sun is filling up this marvelous ravine with such lights andshadows as are felt, yet scarcely understood. Refreshed, amazed, bewildered, go down into that solemn place, and see if you are not moresaint-like than you dared to think yourself. When the times are out ofjoint, as they frequently are, come up here, forget men and things;don't imagine we are as bad as we seem, for it is quite certain we mightbe a great deal worse if we tried. While you bemoan our earthliness, youmay not be the one saint among us. Coming down with the evening, I wasscarcely at the gates of the inner valley when night was on me. Of thisgate, it is formed of a ponderous monument on the right, calledCathedral Rock, and on the left is the one bald spot in the Sierras, thegreat El Capitan. The arch over this primeval threshold is the astraldome of heaven, and the gates stand ever open. There is no toll taken inany mansion of my Father's House, and this is one of them. Passing tothe door of my host, I lifted the latch noiselessly. Before me dawnedfresh experiences. At my back Night gathered deeper than ever, and allaround I seemed to read the rubric of Life's new lesson. 

We are a comfort to ourselves--six of us, all told. Summer invites ourlittle company into a breezy hotel, over in the shadow across thevalley. Winter suggests a log cabin, an expansive fireplace, plenty ofhickory, and as much sunshine as finds its way into our secludedhermitage. So we are done up compactly, in between thick walls, our hardfinish being in the shape of mud cakes in the chinks of the logs, and avery hard finish it is; but we take wondrous comfort withal. 

How do I pass the hours? Leaving my friends, I wander forth, afterbreakfast, in any direction that pleases me. Take today this sheep path;it leads me to a pebbly beach at a swift turn of the Merced. That clumpof trees produces the best harvest of frost-pointed leaves; there arenew varieties offered every day at an alarming sacrifice, and I investlargely in these fragile wares. Tomorrow, I shall go yonder across threetumultuous streams, upon three convenient logs, broad and mossy. Somebook or other goes with me, and is opened now and then. Such books asPlant Life, The Sexuality of Nature, Studies in Animal Life, suggestthemselves. Open these anywhere, and each is annotated and illustratedby the scene before me. Every page is a running text to the hour Iglorify. 

Perhaps a leaf falls into my lap as I sit over the brook, on a log--asingle leaf, gilded about its border, in the centre a crimson flush, fast swallowing up the original greenness; the whole will presently bebronzed and sombre. O, Leaf! how art thou mummified! We do not think ofthese little things of Nature. Look at this leaf. What is its record?How many generations, think you, are numbered in its ancestry? Aperpetual intermarriage has not weakened its fibres. The anatomy of thisleaf is perfect, and the sap of this oak flows from oak to acorn, fromacorn to oak, in an interminable and uninterrupted succession since thefirst day. What are your titles and estates beside this representative?What is your heraldry, with its two centuries of mold; your absurd andconfused genealogies, your escutcheons, blotted no doubt with crimes anderrors, when this scion, which I am permitted to entertain for a moment, comes of a race whose record is spotless and without stain through tenthousand eventful years. Why, Eve would recognize the original of thisstock from the mere family resemblance. 

Do you think these days tiresome? It is embarrassing for some people tobe left alone with themselves. They can no longer play a part, for thereare none like themselves to play to. The sun and stars know you wellenough--most likely, better than you yourselves do. I like this. I wouldout and say to myself: "Here is a confidant. Day hides nothing from me, or you; it expresses all, exposes all--even that which we might not askto see. It is best that we should see it; there are no errors inNature. "

Walking, the squirrel nods to me. I nod back; and why shouldn't I?Nature has familiarly introduced us. Squirrel munches under his tailcanopy till I am out of sight, jabbering all the while. What sage littlefellows go on four feet! I believe an animal has all the instincts ofAdam. He should never be tamed, however, lest he lose his identity. Civilization rubs down the points in our character. As the surf roundsthe pebble, the masses round us. We are polished and insufferablyproper, but have no angles left! It is the angles that give the diamondits lustre. 

Are you hungry? When the index of shadow points out from the base of oldSentinel Rock and touches that column of descending spray they callYosemite, I go to dinner. "The Fall of the Yosemite"--what a dream itis. A dream of the lotus-eaters, and an aspiration of the Ideal inNature. You can not realize it; and yet, you will never forget it. Don'ttake it too early in the Spring, when it is less ethereal--nay, somewhatheavy; rather see it in summer after the rains, or in autumn, betterthan all, when it is like a tissue of diamond dust shaken upon the air. It really seems a labor for it to reach its foaming basin, it is sofilmy, spiritual, delicate. The very air wooes it from its perpetualleap; sudden currents of wind catch it up and whirl it away in theirarms, a trembling captive, or dash it against the solemn and sad-lookingrock, where it clings for a moment, then trickles down the scarred andrugged face of it, fading in its descent; sometimes it is waved back bythe elements, and almost seems to return into its cloudy nest up yonderclose under the sky. It only comes to us at last by impulses, and allalong its shining and vapory path rockets of spray shoot out likependants, dissolving singly and alone. 

But "to return to our muttons. " My dial says 12 M. There is no windingup and down of weights here; 12 M. It undoubtedly is, and mutton waits. These muttons were begotten here of muttons begotten here to the thirdor fourth generation. Their wool is clipped, larded, and spun here byone who lives here and loves this valley. These mittens, that keep thefrost from my fingers, are among the comforting results of this domesticeconomy. In the cabin, by the fireplace, stands the old-fashionedspinning wheel; and the old-fashioned body who manipulates the wool soskillfully is the light of our little household. The shadow has strucktwelve from old Sentinel; and I take the sun once a day, and no oftener. A cool, bracing air, a sharp run over the meadows, for I see the hostesswaving a signal at me for my tardiness, and I am hungry on my ownaccount--such cliffs and vistas as one sees here make one hollow withlooking at them, and are calculated to keep a supply of appetite onhand. Do you like good long strips of baked squash? How do you fancybowls of warm milk--milk that declares a creamy dividend before morning?Here is a fine fowl of our own raising--one that has seen Yosemite inits glory and in its gloom; it ought to be good eating, and I can affirmthat it is. That's a dinner for you, and one where you can begin on piethe first thing, if your soul craves it, which it frequently does. 

A storm brewing, and rain in the lower valley. Never mind, there is nohurry here; one blushes to be caught worrying in the august presence ofthese mountains. 

What can I do this stormy afternoon? Stop within doors and sit at thewindow; a small grossbeak overhead, and we two looking out upon the rainand fog. It is a mile nearly to that wall opposite, but look up high asI can from my window I see no strip of sky. Here is a precipice ofhomely, almost hideous-looking rock, and above it a hanging garden;those pines in that garden are a hundred feet and more in height:measure the second cliff by their proportions--how far is it, think you, to the garden above? A thousand feet, perhaps; and three, four--no, sixof these terraces before you touch blue sky. Oh, what a valley! andwhere else under heaven are we sunk forty fathoms deep in shadow? Butthe sun is up yet, and there floats an eagle in its golden ray. I liketo watch the last beams burn out in that upper gallery among the pines. There is a moment given us at sunset when we may partly realize theinexpressible sweetness of the eternal day that is promised us--a dim, religious light. There is no screen or tint soft enough to render theeffect perfectly. Only these few seconds at sunset seem to hintsomething of its surpassing tenderness. 

What cloud effects! Look up!--a break in the heavens, and beyond it theshoulder of a peak weighing some billions of tons, but afloat now, assoft in outline as the mists that envelop it. What masses of cloudstumble in upon us! The sky is obscured, night is declared at once, andthe fowls go to roost at three P. M. How is the Fall in this weather? Asilver braid dropped from one cloud to another. Its strands parted andjoined again, lost and found in its own element. Leaping from its dizzyeyrie in the clouds, itself most cloud-like, it is lost in a whirlwindof foam. Now it is as a voice heard faintly above the wind, borne hitherand thither. Long, stinging nights, plenty of woolen blankets, anddelicious sleep. Then the evenings, so cosy around the fire. H---- readsScott; we listen and comment. Baby is abed long ago--little Baby, fouryears old, born here also; knowing nothing of the beautiful world savewhat is gathered in this gallery of beauties. Such a queer little child, left to herself, no doubt thinking she is the only little one inexistence, contented to teeter for hours on a plank by the woodpile, making long explorations by herself and returning, when we are all wellfrightened, with a pocketful of lizards and a wasp in her fingers;always talking of horned toads and heifers; not afraid of snakes, noteven the rattlers; mocking the birds when she is happy, and growlingbear-fashion to express her disapproval of any thing. 

When the snows come, there will be avalanches by day and night, rushinginto all parts of the valley. The Hermit hears a rumbling in the clouds, as he hoes his potatoes. He looks; a granite pilaster, hewn out by thehurricanes centuries ago, at last grown weary of clinging to thatprecipitous bluff, lets go its hold, and is dashed from crag to crag ina prolonged and horrible suicide. A pioneer once laid him out a garden, and marked the plan of his cellar; he was to begin digging the next day:that night, there leaped a boulder from under the brow of this cliffright into the heart of the plantation. It dug his cellar for him, buthe never used it. It behooved him and others to get farther out from themountain that found this settler too familiar, and sent a random shot asa sufficient hint to the intruder. 

In the trying times when the world was baking, what agony thesemountains must have endured. You see it in their faces, they are sohaggard and old-looking: time is swallowed up in victory, but it was adesperate duel. There is a dome here that the ambitious foot of man hasnever attempted. Tissayac allows no such liberty. Look up at thatrose-colored summit! The sun endows it with glory long after twilighthas shut us in. We are cheated of much daylight here--it comes later andgoes earlier with us; but we get hints of brighter hours, both morningand evening, from those sparkling minarets now decked with snowyarabesques. I have seen our canopy, the clouds, so crimsoned at thishour that the valley seemed a grand oriental pavilion, whose silken roofwas illuminated with a million painted lamps. The golden woods of Autumndetract nothing from the bizarre effect of the spectacle. To be sure, these walls are rather sombre for a festival, but the sun does what itcan to enliven them, whilst the flame-colored oaks and blood-spottedazaleas projecting on all sides from the shelving rocks resemble to astartling degree galleries of blazing candelabra. Night dispels thisillusion, it is so very deep and mysterious here. The solemn processionof the stars silently passes over us. I see Taurus pressing forward, andanon Orion climbs on hand and knee over the mountain in hot pursuit. 

Does it tire you to look so long at a gigantic monument? I do notwonder. The secret of self-esteem seems to lie in regarding ourinferiors; therefor let us talk of this frog. I have heard his chorus athousand times in the dark. His is one of the songs of the night. Justwatch him in the meadow pool. See the contentment in his double chin;he flings out three links of hind leg and carries his elbows akimbo; hisattitudes are unconstrained; he is entirely without affectation; lifenever bores him; he keeps his professional engagements to the letter, and sings nightly through the season, whether hoarse or not. 

It is a good plan to portion off the glorious vistas of Yosemite, allotting so many surprises to each day. Take, for instance, the tenmiles of valley, and passing slowly through the heart of it, allow atableau for every three hundred yards. You are sure of this variety, forthe trail winds among a galaxy of snowy peaks. Turn as you choose, it iseither a water-fall at a new angle, a cliff in profile, a reflection inriver or lake--the sudden appearance of the supreme peak of all, orravine, caņon, cavern, pine opening, grove or prairie. There is a pointfrom which you may count over a hundred rocky fangs, tearing the cloudsto tatters. I can not tell you the exact location of this terrificclimax of savage beauty; try to find it, and perhaps discover half adozen as singular scenic combinations for yourself. See all that you aretold must be seen, then go out alone and discover as much more foryourself, and something no doubt dearer to your memory than any of themore noted haunts. "See Mirror Lake on a still morning, " they said tome. I saw it, but went again in the evening, and saw a vision that thereader may not expect to have reflected here. It was the picture of themorning--so softened and refined a veil of enchantment seemed thrownover it. Hamadryad or water nymph could not have startled me at thatmoment: they belonged there, and were looked for. I shall hardly againrenew those impressions; it was all so unexpected, and one is not twicesurprised in the same manner. That wondrous amphitheatre was for oncemade cheerful with the broad, horizontal bars of fire that shifted aboutit, yet all its lights were mellowed in the purpling mists of evening, and the whole was pictured in little on the surface of the lake. Therewas nothing earthly visible, I thought then, for every thing seemedtransfigured, floating in a lucent atmosphere. It was the hour when thebirds are silent for the space of one intense moment, stopping with oneaccord--perhaps holding their breath till the spell is broken. As Istood entranced, a large golden leaf, ready and willing to die, let goits hold on the top bough of a tree overhanging the water. From twig totwig it swung. I heard every sound in its fall till it was out of thecongregation of its fellows, turning over and over in mid-air, sailingtoward the centre of the lake. There it hung on the rim of thatstainless crystal, while a thin ring of silver light noiselesslyexpanded toward the shore. The sun was down. All the birds of heavensaid so with their bubbling throats. Bewildered with the deliciousconclusion of this illustration of still life, I turned homeward, dispelling the mirage. Then such a ride home in the keen air, while apillar of smoke rose over the little cabin, telling me which of thehundred bowers of autumn sheltered my nest. 

But, again and again, I have seen all. Pohono has breathed upon me withits fatal breath, yet I survive. It is said that three Indian girls werelong ago bewitched by its waters, and now their perturbed spirits hauntthe place. Those perfectly round rainbows may form the nimbus for eachof the martyrs; they, at any rate, look supernatural enough for such anoffice. The wildly wooded pass to the Vernal and Nevada Falls has echoedto my tread. I have been sprayed upon till my spirit is never dry of thelife-giving waters that flow so freely. But I am just a little tired ofall this. I begin to breathe short, irregular breaths. The soul of thismighty solitude oppresses me; I want more air of the common sort, andless wisdom in daily talks and walks. I remember the pleasant nonsenseof life over the mountains, and sigh for those flesh-pots of Egypt oncein a while. These rocks are full of texts and teachings--these cliffsare tables of stone, graven with laws and commandments. I readeverywhere mysterious cyphers and hieroglyphics; every changing seasonoffers to me a new palimpsest. I do not quite like to play here; I darenot be simple; I'm altogether too good to last long. How many thousandascensions have been made in these worshipful days, I wonder; not merelygetting the body on to the tops of these wonderful peaks, but goingthither in spirit, as when the soul goes up into the mountains to pray?This eye-climbing is as fatiguing and perilous as any. I feel the wantof some pure blue sky. 

A few farewell rambles associate themselves with packing up and plans ofdesertion. Not sad farewells in this case, for if I never again meetthese individual mountains, I carry with me their memory, eternal andincomparably glorious. Let us peep into this nook: I got plentifulblackberries there in the spring, together with stains and thornyscratches. I haul myself over the ferry and back, for old acquaintance'sake; the current is so lazy, it seems incredible that the same watersare almost impassable at some seasons. I succeed in wrecking a wholearmada of floating leaves with stems like a bowsprit. A few beetles takepassage in these gilded barges--no doubt, for the antipodes. 

Did you ever drive up the cattle at milking time? I have; but notwithout endless trial and tribulation, for they spill off the path oneither side in a very remarkable way, and when I rush after one with aflank movement, the column breaks and falls back utterly demoralized. Alittle strategy on the part of their commander (which is myself)triumphs in the end, for I privately reconstruct and march them all upin detachments of one. I look after the little trees, the unbent twigs;they are more interesting to me than your monsters. This nursery ofsaplings sprang up in a night after a freshet: here are quivering aspenstrembling forever in penance for that one sin. They once were gravelypointed out by the guide of a party of tourists as "shuddering asps. " Heis doubtless the same who, being asked "what that was, " (pointing to theNorth Dome, six thousand feet in the air) said "he'd be hanged if heknew; some knob or other. " I recall ten thousand pleasant times as Iturn my face seaward; not only the great and omnipotent shadows underthe south wall of the valley, nor the continuous canticles of thewaters, but innumerable little things that fill up and make lifeperfect. 

The talks, the walks with my friends here, the parrot "Sultan, " feddaily from the table, soliloquizing upon men and things in Arabic andHindostanee, for he scorns English and talks in his sleep. There is_Bobby_, the grossbeak, brought to the door in pin feathers and skinlike oiled silk by an Indian. His history is tragic: this Indian brainedthe whole family and an assortment of relatives; Bobby alone remainingto brood over the massacre, was sold into bondage for two bits and atin dipper without the bottom. The sun seems to lift his gloom, for hesings a little, sharpens his bill with great gusto and tomahawks a bitof fruit, as though dealing vengeance upon the destroyer of his race. 

[Illustration: Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite, in 1869]

When shall I see another such cabin as this--its great fireplaces, andthe loft heaping full of pumpkins? O, Yosemite! O, halcyon days, andbed-time at eight P. M. , tucking in for ten good hours and up again atsix; good eatings and drinkings day by day, mugs of milk and bakedsquash forever, plenty of butter to our daily bread; letters at wideintervals, and long, uninterrupted "thinks" about home and friends (asthe poet of the "Hermitage" writes in one of his letters). Shall I everagain sit for two mortal hours hearing a housefly buzz in the window andthinking it a pleasant voice! But alas! those restless days, when theair was full of driving leaves and I could find nothing on earth tocomfort me. 

I leave this morning. Opportunity takes me by the hand and leads meaway. The heart leaps with emotion: everything is momentous in a quietlife. This is the portal we entered one deepening dusk. Its thresholdwill soon be cushioned with snow; let us hasten on. If I were asked whenis the time to visit Yosemite, I should reply: Go in the spring; see thefreshets and the waterfalls in their glory, and the valley in its freshand vivid greenness. Go again, by all means, in the autumn, when thewoods are powdered with gold dust and a dreamy haze sleeps in the longravines; when the stars sparkle like crystals and the mornings arefrosty; when the clouds visit us in person, and the trees look likecrayon sketches on a vapory background, and the cliffs like leaningtowers traced in sepia on a soft ground glass. Go in spring and autumn, if possible. I should choose autumn of the two; but go at any hazard, and do not rest till you have been. You can enter and go out at thisportal. Passing seaward, to the left, out of the gray and groping mistsa form, arises, monstrous and awful in its proportions; spurning thevery earth that crumbles at its very base as it towers to heaven. Thevapors of the air cleave to its massive front. The passing cloud iscaught and torn in the grand carvings of its capitals. Gaze upon it inthe solemnity of its sunlit surface. Impressive, impassive, magnetic;having a pulse and the organs of life almost; terrible as the foreheadof a god. The full splendor of the noonday can not belittle it, nightcan not compass it. The moon is paler in its presence and wastes herlamp, the stars are hidden and lost over and beyond it. Across the faceof it is borne forever the shadowy semblance of a swift and flyingfigure. Despair and desperation are in the nervous energy depicted inthis marvelous medallion. Surely, the Indian may look with a degree ofreverence upon that picture, painted by the morning light, fading in themeridian day, and gone altogether by evening. A grand etching ofcolossal proportions, representing the great chief Tutochanula in hismysterious flight. The Wandering Jew might look upon it and behold histraditional beard and flowing robes blown here by the winds in therapidity of his desperate haste. It is the last one sees of the valley, as it is the last any have seen of Tutochanula. He fled into the west, cycles ago, and I follow him now into the west, nest-building, andgetting into the shadow and resting after the door of the mountain ispassed, and my soul no longer beats impetuously against those stormywalls. 

With uncovered head, having nothing between me and Saturn, wiser, Itrust, for my intercourse with these masters, purer in heart and holierfor my prolonged vigil, with careful and reverential steps I pass out ofYosemite shadows. 

AN AFFAIR OF THE MISTY CITY

I. 

WHAT THE MOON SHONE ON

She was a smallish moon, looking very chaste and chilly and she peeredvaguely through folds of scurrying fog. She shone upon a silent streetthat ran up a moderate hill between far-scattered corporationgas-lamps--a street that having reached the hill top seemed to saunterleisurely across a height which had once been the most aristocraticquarter of the Misty City; the quarter was still patheticallyrespectable, and for three squares at least its handsome residencesstared destiny in the face and stood in the midst of flower-borderedlawns, unmindful of decay. Its fountains no longer played; even its oncepampered children had grown up, and the young of the present generationwere of a different cast; but the street seemed not to heed thesechanges; indeed it was growing a little careless of itself and neededreplanking. Was it a realization of this fact, I wonder, that caused iton a sudden to run violently down a steep place into the Bay, as if itwere possessed of Devils? Well it might be, for the human scum of thetown gathered about the base of the hill, and the nights there wereunutterably iniquitous. 

O that pale watcher, the Moon! She shone on a rude stairway leading upto the bare face of a cliff that topped the hill; and five and fortyuncertain steps that had more than once slid down into the street belowalong with the wreckage of the winter rains, for the cliff was of rockand clay and though the rock may stand until the crack of Doom, the claymingles with the elements and an annual mud pudding, tons in weight, wasdeposited on the pavement of the high street, to the joy of thejuveniles and the grief of the belated pedestrians. The cliff toweringat the junction of the two thoroughfares shared with each its generousmud-flow and half of it descended in lavalike cascades into the depthsof a ravine that crossed the high street at right angles, passing undera bridge still celebrated as a triumph of architectural ungainliness. 

She shone, my Lady Moon, into that deep ravine which was half filledwith shadow and made a weird picture of the place; it seemed like thebed of some dark noiseless river, the source of which was stillundiscovered; and as for its mouth, no one would ever find it, or, finding, tell of it, for the few who trusted themselves to its voicelessand invisible current were heard of no more; sometimes a sharp cry forhelp pierced the midnight silence, and it was known upon the hill thatmurder was being done down yonder--that was all. Yet day by day thegreat tide of traffic poured through this subterranean passage, withmuffled roar as of a distant sea. 

She shone on all that was left of a once beautiful and imposing mansion. It crowned the very brow of the cliff; it proudly overlooked all theneighbors; it was a Gothic ruin girded about with a mantle of ivy anddense creepers, yet not all of the perennial leafage that clothed it, even to the eaves, could disguise the fact that the major portion of themansion had been razed to the ground lest it should topple and gocrashing into that gulf below. There, once upon a time, in a Gothicgarden shaded by slender cypresses, walked the golden youth of the land;there, feminine lunch parties, pink teas, highly exclusive musicales andfashionable hops, flourished mightily; now the former side-door servedas the front entrance to all that was left of the mansion; the stonethat was rejected had become the headstone of the corner, as it were; itwas an abrupt corner to be sure, with the upper half of its narrow doorfilled with small panes of glass; its modest threshold was somewhatworn; but upon the platform before it a large egg-shaped jar ofunmistakable Chinese origin encased the roots of a flowing cactus thatmight have added a grace to the proudest palace in the Misty City. Thiswas the modest portal of the Eyrie; ivy vines sheltered it like a densethatch; ivy vines clung fast to a deep bay window that nearly filled oneside of the library of the old mansion, now a living-room; ivy vinescurtained the glazed wall of a conservatory where some one slept as in abower. A weird dwelling place was this the moon shone upon, wherepigeons nested and cooed at intervals in all the green nooks thereof. 

She shone on the tall slim panes of glass in the bay window till theyshimmered like ice, and brightened the carpet on the floor of theroom--a carpet that was faded and frayed; she threw a soft glow upon thethree walls beyond the window; where were low, convenient shelves ofbooks; there were books, books, books everywhere--books of alldescriptions, neither creed nor caution limited their range. Manypictures and sketches in oil or water-color--some of them unframed--wereupon the walls above the book-shelves; there were bronze statuettes, graceful figures of lute-strumming troubadours upon the old-fashionedmarble mantel; there were busts and medallions in plaster, and a fewcasts after the antique. Heaped in corners, and upon the tops of thebook-shelves lay bric-a-brac in hopeless confusion; toy canoes fromKamchatka and the Southern seas; wooden masks from the burial places ofthe Alaskan Indians and the Theban Tombs of the Nile Kings; rudefish-hooks that had been dropped in the coral seas; sharks' teeth; andthe strong beak of an albatross whose webbed feet were tobacco pouchesand whose hollow wing-bones were the long jointed stem of a pipe; spearsand war-clubs were there, brought from the gleaming shores ofreef-girdled islands; a Florentine lamp; a roll of papyrus; an idol fromEaster Island, the eyes of which were two missionary shirt buttons ofmother-of-pearl, of the Puritan type; your practical cannibal, havingeaten his missionary, spits out the shirt buttons to be used as the eyeswhich see not; carved gourds were there, and calabashes; Mexicanpottery; and some of the latest Pompeiian antiquities such as aremiraculously discovered in the presence of the amazed and delightedtourist who secretly purchases the same for considerably more than asong. 

There were pious objects, many of them resembling the Ex Votos at ashrine; an ebony and bronzed indulgenced crucifix with a history, andSacred Hearts done in scarlet satin with flames of shining tinselflickering from their tops. 

There were vines creeping everywhere within the room, from jars thatstood on brackets and made hanging gardens of themselves; creepers, yards in length that sprung from the mouths of water-pots hidden behindobjects of interest, and these framed the pictures in living green; ahuge wide-mouthed vase stood in the bay window filled with a great pulufern still nourished by its native soil--a veritable tropical islandthis, now basking in the moonlight far from its native clime. Japaneseand Chinese lanterns were there; and an ostrich egg brought from Nubiathat hung like an alabaster lamp lit by a moonbeam; and fans, of course, but quaint barbaric ones from the Orient and the Equatorial Isles; andframed and unframed photographs of celebrities each bearing an originalautograph; and easy chairs, nothing but the easiest chairs from the veryfar-reaching one with the long arms like a pair of oars over which onethrows his slippered feet, and lolls in his pajamas in memory of an EastIndian season of exile, to the deep nest-like sleepy hollow quite bigenough for two, in which one dozes and dreams, and out of which it is sodifficult for one to rise. Over all this picturesque confusion grinned afleshless human skull with its eye sockets and yawning jaws stuffed fullof faded boutonnieres. 

The moon shone, but paler now for it was growing late, on a closed coupethat rolled rapidly from the Club House in the early morning after aHigh Jinks night, and clattered through the streets accompanied by thematutinal milk wagons with their frequent, intermittent pauses; thus itrolled and rolled over the resounding pavement toward that house on thehill top, The Eyrie. 

The vehicle zigzagged up the steep grade, and stopped at the foot ofthe long stairway; some one alighted and exchanged a friendly word ortwo with the driver, for in that lonely part of the town it was pleasantto hear the sound of one's own voice even if one was guiltily consciousof making conversation; then with a cheerful "Good-night, " this some-oneclimbed the steps while the vehicle hurried away with its jumble ofhoofs and wheels. A key was heard at the outer door; the door sagged alittle in common with everything about the house--and a tenant passedinto the Eyrie. 

Enter Paul Clitheroe, sole scion of that melancholy house whosefoundations had sunk under him, and left him, at the age of five andtwenty, master of himself, but slave to fortune. 

In the dim light he closed and fastened the outer door; from a hallscarcely large enough for two people to pass in, he entered the innerroom with the confident step of a familiar. Having deposited hat, caneand ulster in their respective places--there was a place for everythingor it would have been quite impossible to abide in that snuggery--hesank into one of the easy chairs, rolled a cigarette with meditativedeliberation, lighted it and blew the smoke into the moonlight where itassumed a thousand fantastic forms. 

The silence of the room seemed emphasized by the presence of itsoccupant; he was one who under no circumstances was likely to disturbthe serenity of a house. In most cases a single room takes on thecharacter of the one who inhabits it; this is invariably the case wherethe apartment is in the possession of a woman; but turn a man loose in aroom, and leave him to himself for a season, and he will have made ofthat room a witness strong enough to condemn or condone him on the LastDay; the whole character of the place will gradually change until it hasbecome an index to the man's nature; where this is not the case, the manis without noticeable characteristics. 

Those who knew Paul Clitheroe, the solitary at the Eyrie, would at oncerecognize this room as his abode; those of his friends who saw this roomfor the first time, without knowing it to be his home, would say: "PaulClitheroe would fit in here. " A kind of harmonious incongruity was thechief characteristic of the man and his solitary lodging. 

He sat for some time as silent as the inanimate objects in thatsingularly silent room. An occasional turn of the wrist, the momentaryflash of the ash at the end of his cigarette, the smoke-wreath floatingin space--those were all that gave assurance of life; for when thissolitary returned into his well-chosen solitude he seemed to shed allthat was of the earth earthy, and to become a kind of spectre in adream. 

Having finished his cigarette, Paul withdrew into the conservatory, hissleeping room, half doll's house and half bower, where the ivy had creptover the top of the casement and covered his ceiling with a web ofleaves. Shortly he was reposing upon his pillow, over which hisholy-water font--a large crimson heart of crystal with flames ofburnished gold, set upon a tablet of white marble--seemed almost topulsate in the exquisite half-lights of approaching dawn. 

It may not have been manly, or even masculine, for him thus literally tocurtain his sleep, like a faun, with ivy; it may not have been orthodoxfor him to admit to his Valhalla some of the false Gods, and to honorthem after a fashion; the one true God was duly adored, and all hissaints appealed to in filial faith. That was his nature and pastchanging; if he could not look upon God as a Jealous God visiting Hisjudgments with fanatical justice upon the witted and half-witted, it wasbecause his was a nature which had never been warped by the varioussocial moral and religious influences brought to bear upon it. 

He may have lacked judgment, in the eyes of the world, but he had neversuffered seriously in consequence. It may not have been wise for him tofondly nourish tastes and tendencies that were usually quite beyond hismeans; but he did it, and doing it afforded him the greatest pleasure inlife. 

You will pardon him all this; every one did sooner or later, even thosewho discountenanced similar weaknesses or affectations--or whatever youare pleased to call them--in anyone else, soon found an excuse foroverlooking them in his case. 

He was not, thank heaven, all things to all men; all things to a few, hemay have been--yea, even more than all else to some, so long as thespell lasted; to the majority, however, he was probably nothing, andless than nothing. And what of that? If he did little good in the world, he certainly did less evil, and, as he lay in his bed, under a whitecounterpane upon which the dawning light, sifting through the vines thatcurtained the glazed front of his sleeping room, fell in a mottledJapanese pattern, and while the ivy that covered the Gothic ceilingtrailed long tendrils of the palest and most delicate green, each leafglossed as if it had been varnished, this unheroic-hero, thispantheistic-devotee, this heathenized-Christian, thishalf-happy-go-lucky æthestic Bohemian, lay upon his pillow, theincarnation of absolute repose. 

And so the morning broke, and the early birds began to chirp in the ivyand to prune their plumage and flutter among the leaves; and down thestreet tramped the feet of the toilers on their way to forge and dock. Over the harbor came the daffodil light from the sun-tipped easternhills, and it painted the waves that lapped the sleek sides of a yachtlying at anchor under the hill. A yacht that Paul had watched many a dayand dreamed of many a night; for he often longed with a great longing toslip cable and hie away, even unto the uttermost parts. 

II. 

WHAT THE SUN SHONE ON

He shone on the far side of the eastern azure hills and set all the treetops in the wood beyond the wold aflame; he looked over the silhouetteout of a cloudless sky upon a Bay whose breadth and beauty is one of theseven hundred wonders of the world; he paved the waves with gold, a pathcelestial that angels might not fear to tread. He touched the heights ofthe Misty City and the sea-fog that had walled it in through the nightas with walls of unquarried marble--albeit the eaves had dripped in thedarkness as after a summer shower--and anon the opaque vapors dissolvedand fled away. There she lay, the Misty City, in all her wasted andscattered beauty; she might have been a picture for Poets to dream onand Artists to love--their wonder and their despair--but she is not; sheis hideous to look upon save in the sunset or the after-glow when youcannot see her, but only the dim vision of what she might have been. 

He rose as a God refreshed with sleep and called the weary to theirwork, and disturbed the slumbers of those that toil not and spin not, and have nothing to do but sleep. 

There were no secrets from him now; every detail was discovered; and sohaving gilded for a moment the mossy shingles of the Eyrie he stole intothe room where Paul Clitheroe passed most of his waking hours, andthrough the curtain of ivy and geraniums that screened the conservatoryfrom the eyes of the curious world, and where Paul was at this momentsleeping the sleep of the just. From the bed of the ravine below theEyrie rose the rumble and roar of traffic. The hours passed by. Thesleeper began to turn uneasily on his pillow. The sound of hurrying feetwas heard upon the board walks in front of the Eyrie-cliff; many voices, youthful voices, swelled the chorus that told of the regiments ofchildren now hastening to school. From dreamland Paul returned by easystages to the work-a-day world. He arose, donned a trailing garment withangel sleeves and a large crucifix embroidered in scarlet upon thebreast--that robe made of him a cross between a Monk and aMarchioness--slipped his feet into sandals and entered the largerchamber which was at once living-room and library. He opened theshutters in the deep bay window and greeted the day with the silentsolemnity of a fire-worshipper; gave drink to his potted palms and fernsand flowering plants; let his eye wander leisurely over the titles ofhis books; lingered a little while over his favorites and patted some ofthem fondly on the back. Taking a small key from its nail by the door heopened the mail box without, carrying his letters to his writing tableand leaving them there unopened. He loved to speculate as to whom thewriters were and what they may have said to him. This piqued hiscuriosity, and tided him over a scant breakfast at an inexpensive butfly-blown restaurant where he was wont to eat or make a more or lessbrave effort to eat whenever he had the wherewithal to settle for thesame. Breakfast over and gone the young man returned to his Eyrie, andin due course was at his writing table, and at work upon the weeklyarticle that had been appearing in the Sunday issue of one of thepopular Dailies for an indefinite period, and the price of which had onseveral occasions kept him from becoming a conspicuous object ofcharity. 

Having written himself out for the day, as he was apt to in a few hours, he wandered down to the Club for a bit of refreshment which was sure tobe forthcoming, for his friends there were ever ready to dine him, ormore frequently to wine him, merely for the pleasure of his company. 

[Illustration: San Francisco in 1856]

So the afternoon waned and the dinner hour approached; fortunately thishour was usually bespoken and for a little while at least he was lappedin luxury. On his way home he was very apt to turn in at the wickergates of a typical German Rathskellar where he was unmolested; where theblustering pipes of a colossal orchestrion brayed through an aria fromTrovatore with more sound than sentiment and all unmindful ofmodulation. 

He was at home by midnight, for the beer and the bravura ceased to flowat the witching hour. Then he lounged in the easy chair, gradually andnot unconsciously shedding all the worldly influences that had beenclothing him as with a hair-shirt even since he first went forth thatmorning. Safely he sank into the silence of the place. Every breath hedrew was balm; every moment healing. So he passed into the silence, enfolded by invisible arms that led him gently to his pillow where hesank to sleep with the trustful resignation of a tired babe. 

If this routine was ever varied it was a variation with a vengeance. "From grave to gay, from lively to severe" might have been engraved uponhis escutcheon. It chanced that the family motto was Festina Lente; thisalso was appropriate; had he not all his life made haste slowly? Forthis very reason he had been accounted one of the laziest of his kind;his indolence was a byword merely because he did not throw himself intoan easy chair at the Club, of an evening, and bewail his fate; becausehe did not puff and blow and talk often of the work he hadaccomplished, was accomplishing, or hastening forward to accomplishment. With all his faults, thank heaven, that sin cannot be charged againsthim. 

III. 

BALM OF HURT WOUNDS

He was scrimping in every way; his case was growing desperate. Thebooks, the pictures, the bric-a-brac so precious in his eyes, he wasloath to part with; moreover, he was well aware that if he were totrundle his effects down to an auction-room they would not bring himenough to cover his expenses for a single week. "Better to starve in themidst of my household gods, " thought he, "than to part with them for thesake of prolonging this misery. " The situation was in some respectsserio-comic. While he seemed to have everything, he really had almostnothing; he was in a certain sense at the mercy of his friends anddependent upon them. 

As the dinner hour approached, Paul was called upon to make choice ofthe character of his table-talk; there were several standing invitationsto dine at the houses of old friends, and these were a boon to him, forat such houses the homeless fellow felt much at home. There were specialinvitations, sometimes an embarrassing profusion of them--all kindly, some persistent, and some even imperative; thus the dinner was a fixedfact; the mood alone was to be consulted in his choice of a table andafter all how much of the success of a dinner depends upon the mood ofthe diner!

Paul's income was uncertain; while he had written much, and traveledmuch as a special correspondent, he had never regularly connectedhimself with any journal, and he knew nothing of the routine ofoffice-work. Sometimes, I may say not infrequently, he could not writeat all; yet his pen was his only source of revenue, and often he waswithout a copper to his credit. He was, therefore, constrained to dinesumptuously with friends, when he would have found a solitary salad asweet alternative, and independence far more acceptable. The state ofthe exchequer was very often alarming, and his predicament might havecast a stronger man into the depths; but Paul could fast withoutcomplaint, when necessary, for he had fasted often; and, to confess thetruth, he would much rather have fasted on and on, than parted with anyof the little souvenirs that made his surroundings charming in spite ofhis privations. The friends who loved and fondled him were wont to sendmessengers to his door with gifts of flowers, books, pictures and thelike, when soup-tickets would have been more serviceable, though by nomeans more acceptable. It had happened to him more than once, thathaving failed to break his fast--for he had a judicious horror of debt, born of bitter experience--he received at a late hour as tokens ofsincere interest in his welfare, scarf pins, perfumery and scented soap;or it may have been a silk handkerchief bearing the richly wroughtmonogram of the happy but hungry recipient. At any rate thesetestimonials of his popularity were never edible. Was this hard luck? Hewent from one swell dinner to another, day after day, with never so muchas a crumb between meals. It of course made some difference to him--thisprolonged abstinence--but fortunately, or unfortunately, the effect uponhim mentally, morally and physically was hardly visible to the nakedeye. 

He had a dress coat of the strictly correct type, which he had worn buta few times; he had lectured in it; once or twice, he had recited poemsin it to the audiences of admiring lady friends. It was of no use to himnow, and he felt that he should never need it again. On the street belowhim was a small shop, kept by the customary Israelite. Again and again, Paul had noted the sun-faded frock-coat swinging from a hook over thesidewalk in front of this shop; he had said, "I will take this coat tohim; it is a costly garment; divide the original price of it by thenumber of times I have worn it and I find it has cost me about tendollars an evening. Perhaps this old-clothes dealer will pay me a fairprice for it; Jew though he be, he may be possessed of the heart of aChristian!"

Alas and alack! All of Clitheroe's sufferings could be traced to thecool, calculating hardness of the Christian's heart. Probably it wasprejudice alone that caused him to trust the Christian, and distrust theJew. 

From day to day he passed the shop, striving to muster courage enough toenter and propose his bargain. At first he had imagined the dealeroffering him but ten dollars for the coat--it had cost him a goodly sum;a little later he concluded that ten dollars was too little for any oneto offer him; he might take twenty; a day later thirty seemed to him aprobable offer, and shortly after he imagined himself consenting toreceive fifty dollars, since the coat was in such admirable repair. 

One day he took it to the dealer; he was not cordially welcomed by theman in shirt sleeves, with whom of late he had held innumerableimaginary conversations. The shop was extremely small and dark; the odorof dead garments pervaded it. With an earnest and kindly glance, Paulinvited the sympathy of Abraham the son of Moses who was the son ofIsaac; he saw nothing but speculation in those eyes. His coat wasexamined and tossed aside, as possessing few attractions. Clitheroe'sheart sunk within him; and it sank deeper and deeper as it began todawn upon him that the Hebrew had no wish to possess the garment, and, if he did so, he did so only to oblige the Christian youth. A bargainwas at last struck; Paul departed with five dollars in his pocket--hisdress-coat was a thing of the past. 

What could he do next to extricate himself from his dubious dilemma? Hehad a small gold watch, a precious souvenir: "Gold is gold, " said he, "and worth its weight in gold. " He had the address of one who was knownfar and wide as "Uncle. " He had heard of persons of the highestrespectability seeking this uncle when close pressed, and there findingtemporary relief at the hands of one who is in some respects a goodSamaritan in disguise. Paul found it absolutely impossible for him toenter the not unattractive front of this establishment but there was a"private entrance" in a small dark alley-way; so delicate is theconsideration of an uncle whose business it is to nourish those indistress. 

One night, it was late at night, Clitheroe stole guiltily in through theprivate entrance, and sought succor of his uncle: this was an unctuousuncle, who was as sympathetic and emotional as an undertaker. Paulexhibited his watch; not for worlds would he part with it forever; moneyhe must have at once, and surely some good angel would come to hisassistance before many days; this state of affairs could not exist muchlonger. Mine uncle examined the watch with kindly eyes; with a patheticshake of his head, a pitiful lifting of his bushy eyebrows, acommiserating shrug of his fat shoulders, and a petulant pursing of hisplump lips as much as to say, "Well, it is a pity, but we must make thebest of it, you know"--he told Clitheroe he would advance him tendollars on the watch. For this the boy was to pay one dollar per week, and in the end receive his watch, as good as new, for the sum of tendollars, as originally advanced. Paul hesitated, but consented since hehad no choice in the matter. 

"What name?" asked the Uncle, benevolently. 

"P. Clitheroe, " said Paul under his breath, as if he feared the wholeworld might know of his disgrace; he looked upon this transaction asnothing short of disgrace, and he wished to keep it a profound secret. 

"Oh, yes; I know the name very well. Well, Mr. Clitheroe, here is yourticket; take good care of it; and here is your money--you will alwayspay your money in advance, and weekly, until you redeem your pledge. Ideduct the dollar for the first week. "

Clitheroe took the proffered money, and withdrew. To his surprise andchagrin he found himself possessed of but nine dollars. "It will not gofar, " thought he with a heavy sigh; "and where is the dollar to comefrom? I don't see that I have gained much by this exchange. "

What he gained was this: for fifteen weeks he managed by the strictesteconomy to pay his dollar. At the end of that time, he no longer foundit possible to even pay a dollar and the affair with the Uncle endedwith his having lost, not only his watch, but sixteen dollars into thebargain. 

 * * * * *

A month has passed: the sun is streaming through the tall narrow windowsof a small chapel; the air is flooded with the music that floats fromthe organ loft, the solemn strains of a requiem chanted by sweetboy-voices; clouds of fragrant incense half obscure the altar, where thepriest in black vestments is offering the solemn sacrifice of the Massfor the repose of the soul of one whom Paul had loved dearly ever sincehe was a child. There is one chief mourner kneeling before the altar--itis Paul Clitheroe. 

When the Mass is over, while the exquisite silence of the place isbroken only by the occasional note of some bird lodging in the branchesof the trees without, Paul lingers in profound meditation. He is not atall the Paul whom we knew but a few months ago; through some mysteriousinfluence he seems to have cast off his careless youth, and to havebecome a grave and thoughtful man. 

From the chapel he wanders into the quiet library on the opposite sideof a cloister, where the flowers grow in tangle, and a fountain splashesmusically night and day, and the birds build and the bees swarm amongthe blossoms. Now we see him chatting with the Fathers as they stroll upand down in the sunshine; now musing over the graves of the FranciscanFriars who founded the early missions on the Coast; now dreaming in theruins of the orchard--wandering always apart from the novices and thescholastics, who sometimes regard him curiously as if he were not whollyhuman but a kind of shadow haunting the place. 

His heart grew warm and mellow as he sat by the adobe wall under thered-baked Spanish tiles, richly mossed with age, and contemplated thestatue of the Madonna in the trellised shrine overgrown with passionflowers. There were votive offerings of flowers at her feet, and he laidhis tribute there from day to day. Neither did he neglect to pay hisvisit to the shrine of St. Joseph, in the cloister, or St. Anthony ofPadua, whom he loved best of all, and whose statue stood under thewillows by the great pool of gold fish. 

He used to count the hours and the quarter hours as they chimed in thebelfry and he was beginning to grow fond of the inexorable routine andto find it passing sweet and restful. 

He was unconsciously falling into a mode of life such as he had neverknown before, and he seemed to feel a growing repugnance to the worldwithout him; how very far away it seemed now! He realized an increasingsense of security so long as he lodged within those gates. His darkrobed companions, the amiable Fathers, cheered him, comforted him, strengthened him; and yet when his ghostly father one day sent word toClitheroe that he desired to see him immediately, and thereupon insistedthat the heart-broken boy accompany him to the retreat of his Order, hehad no thought other than to offer Paul the change of scene which alonemight help to tide the youth over the first crushing pangs ofbereavement. 

"Give me a week or two of your time, " pleaded the good priest--"and Iwill introduce you to a course of life such as you have never known; itshould interest and perhaps benefit you; possibly you may find itdelightful. At any rate you must be hastened out of the morbid moodwhich now possesses you, even if we have to drag you by force. "

So Paul went with him, suddenly and in a kind of desperation: his visitwas prolonged from day to day, until some weeks had passed. Peace wasreturning to him--peace such as he had never known before. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile certain of the young poet's friends had called to see him atthe Eyrie, and to their amazement found his rooms deserted; in thestaring bay window with the inner blinds thrown wide open was notice "ToLet. " His landlady knew nothing of his whereabouts. He had said good-byeto no one. His disappearance was perhaps the most mysterious ofmysterious disappearances!

 * * * * *

Now, what really happened was this. Having packed everything he valuedand seen it safely stored, he settled with his landlady and went down tothe Club. It was his P. P. C. , though no one there suspected it, and withjust a touch of sentiment--he walked through the rooms alone; he saw ata glance that the usual habitues of the place were employing themselvesin the same old way. Though he had not been there often of late, no oneseemed much surprised to see him; he passed through the suite of roomswithout addressing himself to any one in particular; a glance ofrecognition here and there; a smile, a slight nod, now and again, thiswas all. Having made the rounds he returned to the cloak-room, took hishat and cane and departed. 

From that hour dated his disappearance. From that hour the Eyrie saw himno more forever. 

 * * * * *

IV. 

BY THE WORLD FORGOT

For a long while he had been listening to the moan of the sea--the wailand the warning that rise from every reef in that wild waste of waters. There was no moon, but the large stars cast each a wake upon the wave, and the distant surf-lines were faintly illuminated by a phosphorescentglow. 

There were reefs on every hand, and treacherous currents that would haveimperilled the ribs of any craft depending on the winds alone for itssalvation; but the "_Waring_, " its pulse of steam throbbing with a slowmeasured beat, picked its way in the glimmering night with a confidencethat made light of dangers past, present, and to come. 

It had struck eight-bells forward; midnight; the air was warm, moist, caressing; it stole forth from invisible but not far distant valesladened with the unmistakable odor of the land--a fragrance that was attimes faint enough, but at other times was almost overwhelming; from theheart of the tropics only, is such perfume distilled; few who inhale itfor the first time can resist its subtle charm; its influence onceyielded to, the soul is soon enslaved and the dreams that follow arenever to be forgotten. 

Eight-bells, and silence broken only by the swish of the propeller as itploughed slowly, deliberately, through the sea; the slap of the ripplesunder the prow, and an occasional harp-like sigh of the zephyr in thesoftly-vibrating shrouds; Paul Clitheroe had stolen out of the cabin andwas sitting by the companion-way on the port side. A small ladder stillhung there, for there had been boating and bathing just before dinner, and there was sure to be more or less fishing whenever the weather wasfavorable. Moreover, it must be acknowledged that the yacht wasliberty-hall afloat, yes, adrift, on a go-as-you-please cruise, andthings were not always in ship-shape. 

An old half-breed Trader, who knew these seas as the star-gazer knowsthe skies, was in the wheelhouse; every wakeful eye among officers andcrew, was at the prow peering into the depth in search ofdanger-signals; every ear was listening intently for an order from thelips of the pilot, and for the first whisper of the wave upon the reef. Meanwhile the vessel crept forward with utmost caution, barely rufflingthe water under her keel. 

_One Bell! Two Bells!_ Clitheroe had for a long time been sittingunobserved by the companion-way. He had dined with a riotous company andwithdrew as soon after dinner as possible; this privilege was freelyaccorded him, for he was at intervals gloomy, or silent, and hiscompanions were quite willing to dispense with his society. Hilarity hadceased for the night, the fact was patent. The truth is, there was aptto be something too much of it aboard that ship. When a young gentleman, on the death of a distant relative, comes suddenly into an almostfabulous fortune, he is apt to set about doing that which pleases himbest; in all probability he overdoes it. If he be fond of any societyand is willing to pay for the purchase of it, he will find no difficultyin supplying himself, even to the verge of satiety. 

A certain gentleman who shall be nameless in these pages but who came tobe known among his followers as _The Commodore_, finding himself heir toa fortune, chartered a yacht for a summer cruise, and invited hisfriends to join him. The yacht had been for some weeks the scene ofunceasing festivity; the joyous party on board her had passed fromisland to island, the feted guests of Kings and Queens and dusky Chiefs;feasting, dancing, and the exchange of gifts--these were the order ofentertainment night and day. 

It was a novel life for most who were on board, filled with adventureand spectacular surprises. The Commodore's hospitality was boundless;the appetites of his guests insatiable. But Clitheroe had seen all thisfrom quite another point of view; he had been a native among thenatives; admitted into brotherhood with the tribe, he had lived the lifethey lead until it had become as natural to him as if he had been bornto it. Their thoughts were his thoughts, their tongue, his tongue. Hewas thinking of this as he sat by the companion-way, in the silence, unobserved. 

_Three Bells!_ He rose and going to the open transom, looked down intothe cabin. The long dinner table had been relieved of dessert-dishes, but the after-dinner bottles were there in profusion, and cigar-boxesand cigarettes within convenient reach; it was an odd scene; a pictureof confusion in a dead calm. The lights were burning low and there wasno sound save the hoarse breathing of some of the revelers who hadsubsided into uncomfortable positions and were too heavy with sleep toseek easier ones. Clitheroe saw at the head of the table the Commodore, stretched back in his easy chair; he was fast asleep; there was no doubtabout that. His guests one and all were dozing. The drowsy stupor thatfollows a debauch pervaded the whole company. I venture the assurancethat not one person present could have been aroused in season to savehimself or herself had the ship at that moment struck a reef, andfoundered. 

There they were, dimly outlined under the cabin-lamps, the companionswith whom for a season Clitheroe had been more or less intimatelyassociated in the Misty City; the Bohemians who had found it an easy andpleasant thing to flock upon the deck of the "_Waring_, " one foggyafternoon, and set sail on a summer cruise. The Commodore invited themfor his entertainment, and because he was a mighty good fellow and couldafford to. They went for a change of air and scene, in search ofadventure--and moreover they were sure of luxurious hospitality for atleast six months. Clitheroe joined the company, not only for the reasonthat there seemed nothing else for him to do, but he was glad of theopportunity of revisiting a quarter of the globe so very dear to him. This voyage, he thought, might re-awaken his interest in life; at anyrate, he could lose nothing by taking it, and that settled the questionfor him. 

The singers, the dancers, the painters and poets made life very livelyin that summer sea; it was a case of sweet idleness with wine, women andwits, and all the world before them where to choose. It must beconfessed that Clitheroe had enjoyed himself in the society of these oldcomrades--you would recognize most of them were he to name them; buttonight, or rather this early morning he had begun to moralize, as hepeered down the transom upon the half-shadowy forms of those feasterswho had fallen by the way. He was asking himself if it paid--thishigh-pressure happiness that knew no respite save temporaryinsensibility? He began to think that it did not, and with a shrug ofhis shoulders and a faint sigh, he turned away. He was about to resumehis solitary watch, for he could not sleep on such a night, when his eyewas attracted by a flitting shadow weaving to and fro astern; it seemedto be soaring upon the face of the waters; was it some broad-wingedsea-bird following in their wake? He watched it as it drew near, growinglarger and larger every moment. No! it was not a bird; but it was thenext thing to one. 

Out of the darkness was evolved the slender hull of a canoe, the wide, many ribbed sail, and the dusky forms of three naked islanders. They hadnot yet taken note of him; with a sudden impulse, he stole up to thetransom, and standing over it so that the lights from the cabin-lampsshone full upon him, he waved a signal to the savages, enjoiningsilence, and bidding them approach with caution. 

In a few moments they had wafted themselves noiselessly up under thecompanion ladder, and there, with suppressed excitement, he wasrecognized. Old friends these, pals in the past, young chiefs from anisland he had loved and mourned. 

There was a moment of passionate greeting, and but a moment, in thesilence under the stars, then, with a sudden resolve, and with never aglance backward, Clitheroe, descending the ladder, entered the canoeand it swung off into the night. 

Two hours later, the "_Waring_, " having run clear of the labyrinthinereefs, steamed up and was out of sight before daybreak. 

 * * * * *

"_And what is left? Dust and Ash and a Tale--or not even a Tale_!"

MARCUS AURELIUS.