Chapter XIII

San Francisco.--Bustling Traffic.--Railroad Employees.--The Flagman.--The Palace Hotel.--The Seal Rocks.--Sutro Residence and Baths.--The Presidio.--Sentinels.--Golden Gate Park.--The Memorial Cross.--San Francisco and Edinburgh Compared.--The Cable Cars.-- Chinatown.--The Opium Den.--The Goldsmiths' Shops.--Across the Bay to Tiburon.--The Bohemian Club.

In San Francisco we had a couple of full days and fragments of two others, all too short to fully take in the wonders of that romantic city, so bizarre, so strange, and in its way so attractive.

After coming across the Bay from Oakland, we found ourselves in the midst of the noise and bustle of the railroad yards, fronting on a street crowded with teams and wagons from morning until night; and in the night, the ever-resounding snorts of the iron horse were not found as soothing as the nightingales of San Remo; but one cannot have everything. If you travel thousands of miles in the same car, and are proud to reach home in the same palatial manner, the nuisances of the depot are of minor importance, after all.

The huge wagons hung low near the ground, groaning under merchandise in transit, and the splendid horses which drew them were worth looking at. The ever-wakeful life of railroad men and their unceasing labors must increase one's respect for that class of people, so strong, so active, so intelligent, and so self-reliant, which garrison the fortresses and outposts of trade all over the American continent. Such a life is a training-ground for possible armies of another kind, which a touch on the American flag, or on our national honor, could transform in a flash into a formidable and reliable force in any emergency.

In my musings while in this busy place, my attention was called to a flagman just opposite where our car was anchored. I explored his shanty and had a good chat with him. His little place was bright without and within. Outside were flowers and shrubs; within not a speck of dust was to be seen. It was as shipshape as the best kind of a New England home, having a place for everything, and everything in its place.

In the intervals of his labor, he had time for a quiet rest on an improvised seat outside his cabin door. That seat attracted me. It was like stone, but its peculiar shape told me it was a joint from the vertebrae of a whale. It was just a piece of gigantic bric-a-brac, well seasoned, which one might covet. I asked him what he would take for it. "Oh," said he, "I could not sell that; it was here before I came, and will remain after me." One could not but respect the sentiment which would regard a tradition rather than pocket a possible dollar. I had too much admiration for such fine feelings to offer to tempt the man again with a new proposal.

A little later on in our stay, we all adjourned to the Palace Hotel, an enormous hostelry which was once the wonder of the continent, and yet has, with its huge interior glass court, a certain air about it quite magnificent.

From there we made excursions to some of the stock sights of the place. We went out to the Seal Rocks and saw the Pacific breakers dash up on the huge crags, where the seals, or sea-lions rather, for they are not true seals, mowed and roared and tumbled over each other in their awkward progress on the cliffs. We saw them also in their element, darting gracefully through the waves. We saw Sutro's Baths near by, a huge structure with splendid accommodation for bathers. We saw also the grounds and residence of Sutro, the rich man who built those baths at his own expense, and for the benefit of the people. The grounds of the residence were filled with statues and ornamental sculptures, too lavish for good taste; but, let us admit, at least, that the intention to thus decorate was certainly good. We also saw the Presidio, or army station, and were severely, but most politely, warned off from certain points by armed and mounted sentries. It was a little touch of the war spirit and order, not displeasing. The sentry with whom we parleyed was a type of the American soldier, self-reliant, unconventional, intelligent, and polite. When one looks at such men, they see the new ideas which have discarded forever the millinery of military life. There are no more restraining straps and buckles; no more pipeclay; no more propping up, like trussed fowls, of chest and shoulders; but all is free, natural, and unrestrained.

We drove out over the bare sand hills, which myriads of lupins of various shades of purple and yellow, were doing their best to clothe and glorify. We came to Golden Gate Park in our drive, and thoroughly enjoyed its extent, the glory of its trees and strange shrubs, and, among other sculptures, the splendid monument to Francis Key, the author of the "Star Spangled Banner." From the park, we could see the surrounding mountains, and on their slopes the distant buildings of various educational institutions, of splendid proportions.

The great stone cross, commemorative of the first religious services held on the Pacific Coast in the time of Sir Francis Drake, loomed up grandly at some distance from us, but we could not get our Jehu to drive us to it; there was always some excuse at hand. The late George William Childs, of Philadelphia, caused its erection, to commemorate these first services of the Church of England; but a cunning myth is circulated in San Francisco that it is an advertisement for a stone quarry!

San Francisco, situated as it is, on a series of precipitous hills, presents some magnificent and picturesque views. It is a sort of gigantic and altogether exaggerated Edinburgh. When one thinks of Edinburgh, however, with its castled crag and Holyrood, and the gardens right through the city, one is almost ashamed to compare a bijou like it, with a huge creature like San Francisco, which suggests, somehow, a kind of prehistoric being, of dragon-like shape and unimagined power.

This prehistoric suggestion which San Francisco gives, is further carried out by the untempered breath of its climate. The trade winds blow in fiercely in the afternoons, and the chill sea fog creeps over everything with a ferocious persistency quite appalling. The promontory on which the city stands is open to all gales, and one's clothing, throughout the year, must be of such a kind, as always to be capable of resisting borean blasts.

This strange, unfamiliar look of San Francisco, is further carried out by the huge, reddish-yellow bars which mark its form. These are the streets, which ride up and down in uncompromising straight lines and parallels, right over every obstacle which they meet.

The barbaric forcefulness which laid out straight streets sheer over little mountains, has developed in San Francisco the cable-car system, which here reigns supreme, tugging everything along with it.

It is no easy matter for a tenderfoot from the East, to ride in such cars on a first attempt, with either comfort or dignity. On one stretch you are ascending at a fearful angle, then for a brief space you are on the level, only to be whirled up or down, as the case may be, in a few minutes more. When one is sitting sideways, as is usual in street cars, it requires a certain diffused consciousness to preserve one's equilibrium, which, those accustomed to the use of seats always on the level, cannot readily attain. This self-adjustment once reached, however, and the pivot of permanence properly adjusted, one can proudly keep one's position like a native, and not flop over one's neighbors at every change of angle, as one must do, to one's utter confusion, on a first ride in a San Francisco cable-car on a steep incline.

There were many attractions for me in San Francisco, among friends whom I had known in days long gone by, in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Racine; but in our short stay little more could be had than a handshake, a good-by, and an _au revoir_, which one hoped, that even the three or four thousand miles soon to intervene, would not render utterly impossible.

Of course we saw Chinatown. We emerged from the Palace Hotel well on in the night, and did not return until almost a naughty hour in the morning; but we all felt well repaid for our trip. I think, though, really, the best part of it was the feeling of possible danger in the sights before us; and the spooky appearance of the dark, narrow streets, into which the moonbeams dropped, revealing to our excited gaze, gliding or stationary and wretched-looking Chinese, on every hand. Our guide was a strange specimen, a short, thickset man with a queer Pennsylvania Dutch dialect, and an Irish name, like Duffy or McCarthy, I forget which. It was droll beyond measure, to hear his description of the joss-house given in a sing-song, full of ludicrous blunders and clipped words. But despite of the comic in our guide, the joss-house itself was solemn enough, and provocative of thought. It was strange to see altar before altar, all covered with vases and lamps alight, and all manner of bronze bowls and incense burners. It was all so weirdly like what one sees in many Christian churches, and yet with a difference, for the dragons and monster forms were so strangely gruesome and grotesque, that it gave one almost an uncomfortable feeling. What did it all mean? Were we at times unconsciously heathen in our cults, or are they at times unconsciously Christian? The whole difficulty was summed up in one monosyllable, which escaped from a brother clergyman's lips standing near me, and that one word was an astonished and emphatic "Well!!!"

We are soon aroused from our reverie by the strident tones of our guide, who, taking his stand near a large stove in one corner, exclaims: "Now, ladies and gemmen, y' would s'pose that dis yere stove was for heating this buildin', but it ain't no such thing. 'Tis for sending things to dead Chinamen. They puts 'em on papers and burns 'em here, and then they thinks they have 'em." Again he would show us the accumulated ashes in the incense bowls, and tell us that it was kept to put under the bodies of the "dead corpses;" and so on, and so on, until you scarcely knew whether he himself knew or not what he was talking about. During all this harangue, a pale-faced celestial was seated behind a sort of counter in one corner, with a countenance bereft of all expression, except the suspicion thereon of a highbred scorn for us all, as a gaping crowd being led about among things of which none of us knew anything. This custodian, or priest, whatever he might have been, had a kind of jaunty cap on his head, and was comfortably smoking, in the most earthly manner, a well-flavored cigarette. We bought from him some joss-sticks as a peace offering, at double prices, and in a grand manner he bowed us out.

I had asked the guide to draw it mild in his exhibitions, and to omit all places, so to speak, off color. This he did. We saw a few restaurants, and a Chinese drug store, where we purchased some strange medicines which looked more _outre_ and picturesque in their material, than in any promise of possible effectiveness in their use. Among these was a dried toad neatly spread out upon wooden splints. This, we were assured, if boiled into a soup, was an infallible remedy for leanness. Soup we knew was said to be fattening, but he who would drink such a concoction as this dried skin would promise, must be deeply enamored of obesity.

We also saw an opium den. This was horrible enough; but the smoker on exhibition was not so horrible to me as the still, silent figures, stowed away on bunks, in the loathsome darkness of the place. The "John," who was conveniently placed in a lighted place near the entrance, lay prone on the hard boards of his cubicle, bent flat on his side like the letter w, clutching his long, villanous-looking pipe in his hands. Near him was a cat, which we were assured also had contracted "the habit;" not that it too hit the pipe, but that it rejoiced in the heavy atmosphere. The impassive smoker, however, burst into a fit of most intense and humorous laughter, when one of us made an attempt to pronounce some Chinese phrase which he was repeating for us. "Now," said our guide, "he is going to take the long draw." By this time the bit of opium was cooked sufficiently at the cocoanut-oil lamp, and with cheeks distended and eyes closed he sucked in the smoke, and exhaled it in a few moments in a large cloud. I had a lighted cigar in my own hands, and I could not but think that two kindred vices here confronted each other face to face, and my conscience was a bit disturbed; but at once reassurance came to me in a sweet female voice, for one of our ladies said, "Oh, do smoke your cigar; the odor of it is so refreshing in this dreadful place." All over the bunks and floor were crawling black insects, large and small. The guide seeing me shrinking from them said, "Never mind them, they never leave here." By this time we were glad to depart and get into the purer air of the moonlit night.

We walked back to our hotel, passing by balconies lit with Chinese lanterns, restaurants aglow with lights, and numerous Chinese club houses where the celestials, by cooperation, evade certain prohibitory enactments, and in the privacy of their associations, enjoy all their celestial delights.

We also visited a manufacturing jeweller's shop where a lot of goldsmiths were at work. The whole place had on it the mark of utter simplicity. The instruments of the craft were primitive, almost rude, in appearance. Each man was seated before his portion of the work bench, or at a small table, in the narrowest possible space. An open dish containing some nut oil, and a bunch of vegetable fibre for wick, aflame at one end in a tiny light, this, a blowpipe, a few little files, and some lumps of wax was all; but behind this was a patient yellow man, capable of quick motion, but never of ignoble hurry, to whom the present moment was an eternity of time and opportunity, of which he felt that himself, and all his work, were essential parts. But, to our infinite amusement, behind all this was a busy little Chinese woman, who flitted from man to man and bench to bench, criticising, blaming, encouraging, and urging on everybody, with a tongue that never ceased, and eyes and motions as alert and rapid as a humming-bird. Her bright little eyes, her unceasing movement, her evident control of all, was absolutely exhilarating. Woman rules everywhere, or could, if she only would.

I must not omit the mention of a glorious trip out across the harbor, to a watering place full of villa residences, nestled at the water's edge, close under the towering mountains which encompass the whole great expanse. The coloring of the place, the forms of the mountains, and the tints upon the water, all suggest the Mediterranean and other foreign shores.

In the fragments of the days left us in San Francisco, most agreeable hours were spent in stores where Chinese and Japanese goods, in great profusion and splendid taste, were freely open to our view.

An agreeable treat was also given me in a visit to the Bohemian Club, where, through an introduction from a New York friend, I met some delightful and hospitable men. In the club were some capital pictures produced by California artists; among them, a great small painting of the redwoods seen at night, with a camp-fire in the foreground, most Rembrandt-like in effect. Another was full of sunshine and life. It was a group of boys undressing in the blue shade between two yellow sand dunes by the sea; while out in the ocean surf beyond, in the full light, were two or three, already in, having the full frolic of their free pleasure in the blue waters of the Pacific.

But we had yet to see other places, and soon San Francisco was left behind.