Chapter XII: The Survivor's Story

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

There was a ship at anchor in the harbor of San Francisco,--a very famous clipper, one of those sailors of the sea known as Ocean Greyhounds. She was built for speed, and her record was a brilliant one; under the guidance of her daring captain, she had again and again proved herself worthy of her name. She was called the _Flying Cloud_. Her cabins were luxuriously furnished; for in those days seafarers were oftener blown about the world by the four winds of heaven than propelled by steam. Yet when the _Flying Cloud_, one January day, tripped anchor and set sail, there were but three strangers on the quarter-deck--a middle-aged gentleman in search of health, the invalid brother, in his eighteenth year, and the small, sad boy.

The captain's wife, a lady of Salem who had followed him from sea to sea for many a year, was the joy and salvation of that forlorn little company. How forlorn it was only the survivor knows, and he knows well enough. Forty years have scarcely dimmed the memory of it. Through all the wear and tear of time the remembrance of that voyage has at intervals haunted him: the length of it, the weariness of it, and the almost unbroken monotony stretching through the ninety odd days that dawned and darkened between San Francisco and New York; the solitary sail that was blown on and on, and becalmed and buffeted between the blue waste of waters and the blue waste of sky; the lonesomeness of it all--no land, no lights flashing across the sea in glad assurance; no passing ships to hail us with faint-voiced "Ahoy!"--only the ever-tossing waves, the trailing sea-gardens, the tireless birds of the air and the monsters of the deep.

Ah, well-a-day! There was a solemn and hushed circle listening to family prayers that morning,--the morning of the 4th of January. The father's voice trembled as he opened the Bible and read from that beautiful psalm:

"They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. 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 and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and He bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men!"

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

Now we are nearing the anniversary of that boy's journal: it runs through January, February and March; it is more than forty years old this minute. And because it is a boy's journal, and the boy was small and sad, I'm going to peep into it and fish out a line or two. With an effort 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 to look about to see what I could see. It begins to get rough. I tried to see home, but I could not. The pilot says he will take a letter ashore for us. Now I will go to bed."

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

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

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

"I don't feel very well to-day," said the small, sad boy, quite plaintively. On the 6th he brightens and begins to take notice. History would 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; 3 turkeys; 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 like it. The captain's wife was going to train the wild-cat when it bit her--but not very hard.

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

"9.--The day has been rather gloomy. I caught another sea-gull but let him 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 note that there were fresh eggs for breakfast, fresh pork for dinner, fresh chicken for supper; that a porpoise had been captured, and that his carcass yielded "three gallons of oil as good as sperm oil"; that no ship had been seen--"no sail from day to day"; that they were in the latitude of Panama; that it was squally or not squally, as the case might be; that on one occasion they captured "four barrels of oil," the flotsam of some ill-fated whaler, and that it all proved "very exciting"; that a dolphin was captured, and that he died in splendor, passing through the whole gamut of the rainbow--that the words of tradition might be fulfilled; that the hens had suffered no sea-change, but had contributed from a dozen to two dozen eggs per day. Still stretched the immeasurable waste of waters to the horizon line on every hand. Day by day the small boy made his entries; but he seemed to be running down, like a clock, and needed winding up. This is how his record dwindled:

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

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

"22.--The day is very pleasant. A nine-knot breeze. Nothing new happened to-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 the captain--who was autocrat of all his part of the world,--he climbed into one of the ship's boats, as it hung in the davits over the side of the vessel. It was an airy voyage he took there, sailing between sea and sky, soaring up and down with the rolling vessel, like a bird upon the wing.

He rigged a tiny mast there--it was a walking-stick that ably served this purpose; the captain's wife provided sails no larger than handkerchiefs. With thread-like ropes and pencil spars he set his sails for dreamland. One day the wind bothered him; he could not trim his canvas, and in desperation he set it dead against the wind, and then the sails 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 to get to New York?"--"Yes, I do," said the little captain of the midair craft.--"Well, then, you'd better haul in sail; for you're set dead agin us now." The sails were struck on the instant and never unfurled again.

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

What a lonely voyage was that across the vast and vacant sea! Now and then a distant sail glimmered upon the horizon, but disappeared like a vanishing snowflake. The equator was crossed; the air grew colder; storm and 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 makes me 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 pretty island, there a towering precipice, and over yonder a mountain covered with snow. We made the fatal Cape Horn at two o'clock, and passed it at four o'clock. Now we are in the Atlantic Ocean.

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

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

One night the moon--a large, mellow tropical one,--rose from a bank of cloud so like a mountain's chain that the small one clapped his hands in glee and cried: "Land ho!" But, alas! it was only cloud-land; and his eyes, that were starving for a sight of God's green earth, were again bedewed. Indeed he was bound for a distant shore, a voyage of ninety-one days; and during all that voyage he was in sight of land for five days only. It may be said that the port he was bound for, and where he was destined to pass two years at school, four thousand miles from his own people, 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 the high seats of their catamarans--the frailest rafts,--drifted within hailing distance; and over night the brave ship was within almost speaking distance of Pernambuco. The lights of the city were like a bed of 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 abuse your patience:

"APRIL 5, 1857.--I was _awoke_ this morning by the noise the pilot made in getting on board. At ten o'clock the steam-tug Hercules took us in tow. We had beautiful views of the shore [God knows how beautiful they were 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 of the _Flying Cloud_,--where we retired to soft beds to spend the night."

There is a plaintive touch in that reference to _soft beds_ after three months in the straight and narrow bunk of a ship. And there is more pathos 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 left to tell the tale.

A BIT OF OLD CHINA

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

A few of these gentlemen lodge on the upper floors of their business houses, with Chinese wives, and quaint, old-fashioned children gaudily dressed, 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 and civil merchants, and the outward appearance of traffic, as conducted in the immediate vicinity, is rather American than otherwise.

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

Here little China flaunts her scarlet streamers overhead, and flanks her doors with legends in saffron and gold; even its window panes have a foreign look, and within is a glimmering of tinsel, a subdued light, and china lamps flickering before graven images of barbaric hideousness. The air is laden with the fumes of smoking sandal-wood and strange odors of the East; and the streets, swarming with coolies, resound with the echoes of an unknown tongue. There is hardly room for us to pass; we pick 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 been rightly interpreted. China is not more Chinese than this section of our Christian city, nor the heart of Tartary less American.

Turn which way we choose, within two blocks, on either hand we find nothing but the infinitely small and astonishingly numerous forms of traffic on which the hordes around us thrive. No corner is too cramped for the squatting street cobbler; and as for the pipe cleaners, the cigarette rollers, the venders of sweetmeats and conserves, they gather on the curb or crouch under overhanging windows, and await custom with the philosophical resignation of the Oriental.

On Dupont Street, between Clay and Sacramento Streets--a single block,--there are no less than five basement apartments devoted exclusively to barbers. There are hosts of this profession in the quarter. Look down the steep steps leading into the basement and see, at any hour of the day, with what deft fingers the tonsorial operators manipulate the devoted pagan head.

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

Close about us there are over one hundred and fifty mercantile establishments and numerous mechanical industries. The seventy-five cigar factories employ eight thousand coolies, and these are huddled into the closest quarters. In a single room, measuring twenty feet by thirty feet, sixty men and boys have been discovered industriously rolling _real_ Havanas.

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

One frequently meets a travelling bazaar--a coolie with his bundle of fans and bric-a-brac, wandering from house to house, even in the suburbs; and the old fellows, with a handful of sliced bamboos and chairs swinging from the poles over their shoulders, are becoming quite numerous; chair mending and reseating must be profitable. These little rivulets, growing larger and more varied day by day, all spring from that great fountain of Asiatic vitality--the Chinese Quarter. This surface-skimming beguiles for an hour or two; but the stranger who strolls through the streets of Chinatown, and retires dazed with the thousand eccentricities of an unfamiliar people, knows little of the mysterious life that surrounds him.

Let us descend. We are piloted by a special policeman, one who is well acquainted with the geography of the quarter. Provided with tapers, we plunge into one of the several dark recesses at hand. Back of the highly respectable brick buildings in Sacramento Street--the dwellings and business places of the first-class Chinese merchants--there are pits and deadfalls innumerable, and over all is the blackness of darkness; for these human moles can work in the earth faster than the shade of the murdered Dane. Here, from the noisome vats three stories underground to the hanging gardens of the fish-dryers on the roofs, there is neither nook nor corner but is populous with Mongolians of the lowest caste. The better class have their reserved quarters; with them there is at least room to stretch one's legs without barking the shins of one's neighbor; but from this comparative comfort to the condensed discomfort of the impoverished coolie, how sudden and great the change!

Between brick walls we thread our way, and begin descending into the abysmal darkness; the tapers, without which it were impossible to proceed with safety, burn feebly in the double night of the subterranean tenements. Most of the habitable quarters under the ground are like so many pigeon-houses indiscriminately heaped together. If there were only sunshine enough to drink up the slime that glosses every plank, and fresh air enough to sweeten the mildewed kennels, this highly eccentric style of architecture might charm for a time, by reason of its novelty; there is, moreover, a suspicion of the picturesque lurking about the place--but, heaven save us, how it smells!

We pass from one black hole to another. In the first there is a kind of bin for ashes and coals, and there are pots and grills lying about--it is the kitchen. A heap of fire kindling wood in one corner, a bench or stool as black as soot can paint it, a few bowls, a few bits of rags, a few fragments of food, and a coolie squatting over a struggling fire,--coolie who rises out of the dim smoke like the evil _genii_ in the Arabian tale. There is no chimney, there is no window, there is no drainage. 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 stale smoke, which our entry has forced out of the corners; the kitchen will only hold so much smoke, and we have made havoc among the cubic inches. Underfoot, the thin planks sag into standing pools, and there is a glimmer 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 more slippery and slimy, is an uncovered cesspool, from which a sickening stench exales continually. All about it are chambers--very small ones,--state-rooms let me call them, opening upon narrow galleries that run in various directions, sometimes bridging one another in a marvelous and exceedingly ingenious economy of space. The majority of these state-rooms are just long enough to lie down in, and just broad enough to allow a narrow door to swing inward between two single beds, with two sleepers in each bed. The doors are closed and bolted; there is often no window, and always no ventilation.

Our "special," by the authority vested in him, tries one door and demands admittance. There is no response from within. A group of coolies, who live in the vicinity and have followed close upon our heels even since our descent into the under world, assure us in soothing tones that the place is vacant. We are suspicious and persist in our investigation; still no response. The door is then forced by the "special," and behold four of the "seven sleepers" packed into this air-tight compartment, and insensible even to the hearty greeting we offer them!

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

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

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

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

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

The throngs of customers that keep the pawn-shops crowded with pledges are probably most of them victims of the gambling table or the opium den. They come from every house that employs them; your domestic is impatient of delay, and hastens through his daily task in order that he may 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 the Chinese. There are several hundred dens in San Francisco where, for a very moderate sum, the coolie may repair, and revel in dreams that end in a deathlike sleep.

Let us pause at the entrance of one of these pleasure-houses. Through devious ways we follow the leader, and come at last to a cavernous retreat. The odors that salute us are offensive; on every hand there is an accumulation of filth that should naturally, if it does not, breed fever and death. Forms press about us in the darkness,--forms that hasten like shadows toward that den of shades. We enter by a small door that is open for a moment only, and find ourselves in an apartment about fifteen feet square. We can touch the ceiling on tiptoe, yet there are three tiers of bunks placed with head boards to the wall, and each bunk just broad enough for two occupants. It is like the steerage in an emigrant vessel, eminently shipshape. Every bunk is filled; some of the smokers 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, the expression that betrays hopeless intoxication. Some are preparing the enchanting pipe,--a laborious process, that reminds one of an incantation. See those two votaries lying face to face, chatting in low voices, each loading his pipe with a look of delicious expectation in every feature. They recline at full-length; their heads rest upon blocks of wood or some improvised pillow; a small oil lamp flickers between them. Their pipes resemble flutes, with an inverted ink-bottle on the side near the lower end. They are most of them of bamboo, and very often are beautifully colored with the mellowest and richest tints of a wisely smoked meerschaum. A small jar of prepared opium--a thick black paste resembling tar--stands near the lamp.

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

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

What is this key which seems for a time to unlock the gates of heaven and 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-twenty elements, each one of them a compound by itself, and many of them among the most complex compounds known to modern chemistry. This "dread agent of unimaginable pleasure and pain," this author of an "Iliad of woes," lies within reach of every creature in the commonwealth. As the most enlightened and communicative of the opium eaters has observed: "Happiness may be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat pocket; portable ecstasy may be had corked up in a pint bottle; peace of mind may be set down in gallons by the mail-coach."

This is the chief, the inevitable dissipation of our coolie tribes; this is one of the evils with which we have to battle, and in comparison with which the excessive indulgence in intoxicating liquors is no more than what a bad dream is to hopeless insanity. See the hundred forms on opium pillows already under the Circean spell; swarms are without the chambers awaiting their turn to enter and enjoy the fictitious delights of this paradise.

While the opium habit is one that should be treated at once with wisdom and severity, there is another point which seriously involves the Chinese 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 domestic hearth smelling of punk and pestilence. A child fled with a shrill scream at our approach. This was the hospital of the quarter. Nine cases of small-pox were once found within its narrow walls, and with no one to care for them. As we explored its cramped wards our path was obstructed by a body stretched upon a bench. The face was of that peculiar smoke-color which we are obliged to accept as Chinese pallor; the trunk was swathed like a mummy in folds of filthy rags; it was motionless as stone, apparently insensible. Thus did an opium victim await his dissolution.

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

I will cast but one more shadow on the coolie quarter, and then we will search for sunshine. It is folly to attempt to ignore the fact that the seeds 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 city office. Our proposed visitation has been telephoned to the resident physician, who is a kind of prisoner with his leprous patients on the lonesome slope of a suburban hill. As we get into the rugged edge of the city, among half-graded streets, strips of marshland, and a semi-rustic population, we ask our way to the pest-house. Yonder it lies, surrounded by that high white fence on the hill-top, above a marsh once clouded with clamorous water-fowl, but now all, all under the spell of the quarantine, and desolate beyond description. Our road winds up the hill-slope, sown thick with stones, and stops short at the great solid gate in the high rabbit fence that walls in the devil's acre, if I may so call it. We ring the dreadful bell--the passing-bell, that is seldom rung save to announce the arrival of another fateful body clothed in living death.

The doctor welcomes us to an enclosure that is utterly whitewashed; the detached houses within it are kept sweet and clean. Everything connected with the lazaret is of the cheapest description; there is a primitive simplicity, a modest nakedness, an insulated air about the place that reminds one of a chill December in a desert island. Cheap as it is and unhandsome, the hospital is sufficient to meet all the requirements of the plague in its present stage of development. The doctor has weeded out the enclosure, planted it, hedged it about with the fever-dispelling eucalyptus, and has already a little plot of flowers by the office window,--but this is not what we have come to see. One ward in the pest-house is set apart for the exclusive use of the Chinese lepers, who have but recently been isolated. We are introduced to the poor creatures one after another, and then we take them all in at a glance, or group them according to their various stages of decomposition, or the peculiar character of their physical hideousness.

They are not all alike; with some the flesh has begun to wither and to slough off, yet they are comparatively cheerful; as fatalists, it makes very little difference to them how soon or in what fashion they are translated to the other life. There is one youth who doubtless suffers some inconveniences from the clumsy development of his case. This lad, about eighteen years of age, has a face that is swollen like a sponge saturated with corruption; he can not raise his bloated eyelids, but, with his head thrown back, looks downward over his cheeks. Two of these lepers are as astonishing specimens as any that have ever come under my observation, yet I have morbidly sought them from Palestine to Molokai. In these cases the muscles are knotted, the blood curdled; masses of unwholesome flesh cover them, lying fold upon fold; the lobes of their ears hang almost to the shoulder; the eyes when visible have an inhuman glance that transfixes you with horror. Their hands are shapeless stumps that 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, the purging with hyssop, and the cleansing by fire, St. Luke records: "There met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off; and they lifted up their voices and cried, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" And to-day, more than eighteen hundred years later, lepers gather on the slopes of Mount Zion, and hover at the gates of Jerusalem, and crouch in the shadow of the tomb of David, crying for the bread of mercy. Leprosy once thoroughly engrafted on our nation, and nor cedar-wood, nor scarlet, nor hyssop, nor clean birds, nor ewes of the first year, nor measures of fine flour, nor offerings of any sort, shall cleanse us for evermore.

Let us turn to pleasanter prospects--the Joss House, for instance, one of the several temples whither the Chinese frequently repair to propitiate the reposeful gods. It is an unpretentious building, with nothing external to distinguish its facade from those adjoining, save only a Chinese legend above the door. There are many crooks and turns within it; shrines in a perpetual state of fumigation adorn its nooks and corners; overhead swing shelves of images rehearsing historical tableaux; there is much carving and gilding, and red and green paint. It is the scene of a perennial feast of lanterns, and the worshipful enter silently 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 or the screaming pipes startle us at intervals, and white-robed priests pass in and out, droning their litanies.

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

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

We are still unrefreshed and sorely in need of rest. Overhead swing huge balloon lanterns and tufts of gold flecked scarlet streamers,--a sight that maketh the palate of the hungry Asiatic to water; for within this house may be had all the delicacies of the season, ranging from the confections of the fond suckling to funeral bake-meats. Legends wrought in tinsel decorate the walls. Here is a shrine with a vermilion-faced god and a native lamp, and stalks of such hopelessly artificial flowers as fortunately are unknown in nature. Saffron silks flutter their fringes in the steams of nameless cookery--for all this is but the kitchen, and the beginning of the end we aim at.

A spiral staircase winds like a corkscrew from floor to floor; we ascend by easy stages, through various grades of hunger, from the economic appetite on the first floor, where the plebian stomach is stayed with tea and lentils, even to the very house-top, where are administered comforting syrups and a _menu_ that is sweetened throughout its length with the twang of lutes, the clash of cymbals, and the throb of the shark-skin drum.

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

We see everywhere the component parts of a civilization separate and distinct from our own. They have their exits and their entrances; their religious life and burial; their imports, exports, diversions, tribunals, punishments. They are all under the surveillance of the six companies, the great six-headed supreme authority. They have laws within our laws that to us are sealed volumes. Why should they not? Fifty years ago 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 as low as 4,000 and as high as 15,000 per annum. Since, 1868 we have received from 10,000 to 15,000 yearly.

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

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

"It is a little bit of old China, this quarter of ours," said the artist, rising to go. And so it is, saving only a noticeable lack of dwarfed trees and pale pagodas and sprays of willowy bamboo; of clumsy boats adrift on tideless streams; of toy-like tea gardens hanging among artificial rocks, and of troops of flat-faced but complaisant people posing grotesquely in ridiculous perspective.

WITH THE EGG-PICKERS OF THE FARALLONES

Those who have visited the markets of San Francisco during the egg season may have noticed the abundance of large and singularly marked eggs, that are offered for sale by the bushel. The shells of these eggs are pear-shaped, parti-colored, and very thick. They range in color from a 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. Some are beautiful, with soft tints blended in a delicate lace-like pattern. Some are very ugly, and look unclean. All are a trifle stale, with a meat of coarse texture and gamy flavor. But the Italians and the Coolies are fond of them, and doubtless many a gross finds its way into the kitchens of the popular cheap restaurants, where, disguised in omelets and puddings, the quantity compensates for the lack of quality, and the palate of the rapid eater has not time to analyze the latter. These are the eggs of the sea-gull, the gull that cries all day among the shipping in the harbor, follows the river boats until meal-time, and feeds on the bread that is cast upon the water.[2] How true it is that this bread returns to us after many days!

The gulls, during incubation, seek the solitude of the Farallones, a group of desolate and weather-beaten rocks that tower out of the fog about thirty miles distant from the mouth of the harbor of San Francisco. Nothing can be more magnificently desolate than the aspect of these islands. Scarcely a green blade finds root there. They are haunted by sea-fowl of all feathers, and the boom of the breakers mingles with the bark of the seals that have colonized on one of the most inaccessible islands of the group. It is here that myriads of sea-birds rear their young, here where the very cliffs tremble in the tempestuous sea and are drenched with bitter spray, and where ships have been cast into the frightful jaws of caverns and speedily ground into splinters.

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

I have before me the notes of a retired egg-picker; they record the brief experience of one who was interested in the last campaign, which, as it terminated the career of the egg-pirates, is not without historical interest. I will at once introduce the historian, and let him tell 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 one another, but Tom and Jim, and Fred, that's me, are pals, and have been these many months. So we conclude to hang together, and make the most of an 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, for the stomach's sake. A jolly crew, to be sure, and jollily we bade adieu to the fellows who had gathered in the dock to wish us God-speed. Casting loose we swung into the stream, and then slowly and clumsily made sail. The town never looked prettier; it is always the way and always will be; towns, like blessings, brighten just as they get out of reach. Drifting into the west we began to grow thoughtful; what had at first seemed a lark may possibly prove to be a very serious matter. We have to feed on rough rations, work in a rough locality, among rough people, and our profits, or our share of the profits, will depend entirely upon the fruitfulness of the egg-orchard, and the number of hundred gross that we are able to get safely into the market. No news from the town, save by the schooner that comes over at intervals to take away our harvest. No society, save our own, good enough always, provided we are not forcibly confined to it. No amusements beyond a novel, a pipe, 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 of the Pacific. Wind, fresh and cold; we are to be out all night and looking about for bunks, we find the schooner accommodations are limited, and that the captain and his crew monopolize them. We sleep anywhere, grateful that we are able to sleep at all.

"10 p.m.--A blustering head wind, and sea increasing. What little supper we were able to get on board was worse than none at all, for it did not stay with us--anything but fun, this going to sea in a bowl, to rob gull's nests, and smuggle eggs into market.

"May 5th.

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

"At noon off the landing, a buoy bobbing in the billows, to which we are expected to make fast the schooner, and get to shore in the exceedingly small boat; captain fears to tarry on account of heavy weather; concludes to return to the coast and bide his time; consequently makes for Bolinas Bay, which we reach about 9 p.m., and drop anchor in comparatively smooth water; glad enough to sleep on an even keel at last; it seems at least six months since we left the shining shores of San 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 the narrow bay is scarcely rippled by the blast that rushes over us, thick with flying-scud. Captain resolves to await better weather; some of the boys go on shore, and wander out to a kind of reef at the mouth of the bay, where in a short time they succeed in gathering a fine mess of mussels; the rest of us, the stay-on-boards, rig up a net and catch fifteen large fat crabs; with these we cook a delicious dinner, which we devour ravenously, like half-starved men; begin to realize how storm-tossed mariners feel, and have been recounting hair-breadth escapes, over our pipes on deck; there will be much to tell the fellows on 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, we put to sea, and once more head for the Farallones. They are hidden in mist, but we beat bravely about, and by-and-by distinguish the faint outlines of the islands looming through the fog! We try to secure the buoy, tacking to and fro; just at the wrong moment our main halyards part, and the sail comes crashing to the deck. To avoid being cast on the inhospitable shore, we put to sea under jib and foresail, and are five miles away before damages are repaired and we dare venture to return; head about, and make fast this time. Hurrah! After several trips of the small boat, succeed in landing luggage and provisions above high-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 and sand.

"We find two cabins at our disposal; the larger one containing dining-room and kitchen, and chambers above; seven of our boys store their blankets in the rude bunks that are drawn by lot. Tom, Jim, and I secure the smaller cabin, a single room, with bunks on three sides, a door on the fourth.

"9 p.m.--We have dined and smoked and withdrawn to our respective lodges; the wind moans without, a thin, cold fog envelopes us; the sea breaking furiously, the night gloomy beyond conception, but the captain and his crew on the little schooner are not so comfortable as the egg-pickers whom they have left behind.

"May 8th.

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

"We resolve to attack them. Having armed ourselves with clubs about two feet in length, we proceed in a body until a rabbit is sighted, then, separating, we surround him and gradually close him in, pelt him with stones or sticks until the poor fellow is secured; sometimes three or four are run down together; it is cruel sport, but this is our only hope of 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 the islands is a chasm, through which the wind whistles; the waves, rushing in 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 in length and two in width; one crosses it by the aid of a life-line. On the further rock the birds are nesting in large numbers, and to-morrow we begin the wholesale robbery of their nests.

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

"May 10th.

"In front of us we each carry a large sack in which to deposit eggs; our boots are clumsy, and the heavy nails that fill their soles make them heavy and difficult to walk in. We also carry a strong staff to aid us in 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 and shy of his tracks; the day's work has not proved profitable. Few of us gathered any eggs; one who was more successful, and had secured enough to make it extremely difficult for him to scale the rocks, slipped, fell on his face, and scrambled all his store. His plight was laughable, but he was scarcely in the mood to relish it, as he washed his sack and blouse in cold water, while we indulged in cards.

"May 11th.

"Built another bridge over a gap where the sea rushes, and which we call the _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, or the crop is late this year. More rabbits in the p.m.; more wind, more fog; and at night, pipes, cards, and a few choruses that sound strange and weird in the fire lights on this lonely island.

"May 12th.

"Eggs are so very scarce. The foreman advises our resting for a day. We lounge about, looking off upon the sea; sometimes a sail blows by us, but our islands are in such ill-repute with mariners, they usually give us a wide berth, as they call it. A little homesick towards dusk; wonder how the boys in San Francisco are killing time; it is time that is killing 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 approach of danger, and unless we can steal upon these queer fish unawares, and thrust something under their shells before they have shut down upon the rock, it is almost impossible to pry them open. Some of the boys are searching in the sea up to their waists--hard work when one considers how 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 dozen eggs, and got them safely back to camp; in some nests there were three eggs, 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 are delusions.

"May 15th.

"It being Sunday, we rest from our labors; by way of varying the monotony of island life, we climb up to the lighthouse, 300 feet above sea level. The path is zig-zag across the cliff, and is extremely fatiguing. While ascending, a large stone rolled under my foot, and went thundering down the cliff. Jim, who was in the rear, heard it coming, and dodged; it missed his head by about six inches. Had it struck him, he would have been hurled into the sea that boiled below; we were both faint with horror, after realizing the fate he had escaped. Were cordially welcomed by the lighthouse keeper, his wife, and her companion, a young woman who had come to share this banishment. The keeper and his wife visit the mainland but twice a year. Everywhere we saw evidence of the influence of these charming people. The house was tidy--the paint snow-white. The brass-work shone like gold; the place seemed a kind of Paradise to us; even the machinery of the revolving light, the multitude of reflectors, etc., was enchanting. We dreaded to return to our miserable cabins, but were soon compelled to, and the afternoon was spent in the customary rabbit chase, ending with a stew of no mean proportions.

"May 16th.

"More eggs, and afterwards a fishing excursion, which furnished us material for an excellent chowder. We are beginning to look for the return 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 them on poles over our shoulders Coolie fashion, and slowly made our way back to camp. The baskets weighed a ton each before we at last emptied them by the cabin door. Built a huge fire under a cauldron, and left a mess of fish to boil until morning. The abalones are as large as steaks, and a great deal tougher. Smoke, cards, and to bed; used up.

"May 18th.

"Same program as yesterday, only the novelty quite worn off, and this kind 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 it before closing it with chagrin.

"May 20th.

"Spent the p.m. in getting the abalone shells down to the egg-house at the landing. We have cleaned them, and are hoping to find this speculation profitable; for the shells, when polished and cut, are much used in the market for inlaying and setting in cheap jewelry. We loaded a small tram, pushed it to the top of an incline, and let it roll down the other side to the landing, which it reached in safety. This is the only labor-saving machine at our command.

"May 21st.

"We seem to be going all to pieces. The day commenced badly. Two of the boys inaugurated it by a violent set-to before breakfast--an old grudge broke out afresh, or perhaps the life here has demoralized them. I have lamed my foot. Tide too high for abalone fishing. Eggs growing scarce, and the rabbits seem to have deserted the accessible parts of the island. Everybody is disgusted. We are forgetting our table-manners, it is '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; no change in the weather; tobacco giving out, and not a grain of good humor to be had in the market. To bed, very cross.

"May 22d.

"No one felt like going to work this morning. Affairs began to look mutinous. We have searched in vain for the schooner, now considerably overdue, and are dreading the thought of having to fulfill a contract which calls for six weeks' labor on these islands. Some of the other islands are to be visited, and are accessible only in small boats over a sea that is never even tolerably smooth. This expedition we all dread a little--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 the horizon; we ascended the hill to watch it. A steamer, doubtless, bound for a sunnier clime, for no clime can be less sunny than ours of the past fortnight.... It was a steamer, a small Government steamer, making directly for our island. We became greatly excited, for nothing of any moment had occurred since our arrival. She drew in near shore and cast anchor. We gathered at the landing-cove to give her welcome. A boat was beached in safety. An officer of the law said, cheerfully, as if he were playing a part in a nautical comedy, 'I must beg you, gentlemen, to step on board the revenue cutter, and return to San Francisco.' We were so surprised we could not speak; or were we all speechless with joy, I wonder? He added, this very civil sheriff, 'If you do not care to accompany me, I shall be obliged to order the marines on shore. You will pardon me, but as these islands are Government property, you are requested to immediately withdraw from them.' We withdrew. We steamed away from the windy rocks, the howling caverns, the seething waves, the frightful chasms, the seabirds, the abalones, the rabbits, the gloomy cabins, and the pleasant people at the top of the cliff within the white walls of the lighthouse. Joyfully we bounded over the glassy waves, that grew beautiful as the Farallones faded in the misty distance, and, having been courteously escorted to the city dock, we were bidden farewell, and left to the diversions of the hour. Thus ended the last siege of the Farallones by the egg-pickers of San Francisco. (Profits _nil_.)"

And thus I fear, inasmuch as the Government proposes to guard the sea-birds until a suitable license is secured by legitimate egg-pickers, the price of gulls' eggs will go up in proportion, and hereafter we shall have to look upon them as luxuries, and content ourselves with the more modest and milder-flavored but undecorated products of the less romantic 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