Chapter X

LONG WHARF--CLIPPER SHIPS--CHINESE EMIGRANTS--THE MAY FIRE--AN
EXCITING SCENE--IRON HOUSES--VALLEJO--THE COYOTE--WILD GEESE.

_May, 1851._

The Central Wharf of San Francisco, which is nearly a mile in length, is for some distance occupied on either side by Jew slopsellers; and, as these indefatigable gentlemen insist all over the world upon exposing their wares outside their shops, the first glance down Central Wharf impresses you with the idea that the inhabitants of the district have hung their clothes out to dry after a shower of rain. Scattered among the Jew shops are markets for vegetables and poultry, fishmongers, candy-sellers, (the Long Wharfers are very fond of sugar-plums), gambling-houses of the worst repute, and drinking-shops innumerable. Being narrow and crowded, and full of loaded drays, drunken sailors, empty packing-cases, run-away horses, rotten cabbages, excited steam-boat runners, stinking fish, Chinese porters, gaping strangers, and large holes in the planks, through which you may perceive the water, it is best to be careful in walking down Long Wharf, and to turn neither to the right nor to the left.

This busy street terminates at the city front; and from thence the wharf, which extends for half a mile into the sea, is flanked on either side by ships discharging their cargoes with great order and rapidity.

Here may be seen a fleet of those clippers to which the Californian trade gave rise. The “Queen of the Clippers” is one of the finest and largest of these ships, and is a beautiful model; she is extremely sharp at either end, and, “bows on,” she has the appearance of a wedge. Her accommodations are as perfect as those of a first-class ocean steamer, and are as handsomely decorated; and, as it is worthy of remark that great attention has been paid to the comfort of the crew, the sooner some of our shipowners copy that part of her construction the better. Nor should they overlook any longer that the Americans have long economised in ship labour very materially by the use of patent blocks, patent trusses, and more particularly in patent steering-gear.

It gives cause for reflection to observe how on board these mammoth clippers, one man, comfortably protected from the weather by a wheel-house, can steer the ship with ease in any weather, and to recall recollections of big English ships beating up against the monsoon, with three and even four men at the helm, tugging to get it up, or pulley-hauling to get it down, exposed on the deck in heavy sou’-westers and painted canvass frocks, while their faces are cut to pieces by the salt spray that the wind sends drifting along the deck. Yet comparatively few of our merchant vessel owners have availed themselves of these improvements. Scotland, as far as we are concerned, has most distinguished herself in the production of clippers, and the small class, similar to the “Marco Polo” and “Stornaway” stand first as specimens of mercantile naval architecture.

The building of clippers, if not originated by, was encouraged by the discovery of gold in California, for the valuable market that was so shortly afterwards opened to the United States afforded a field for the employment of ships that could perform a journey round the Horn in a space of time that would enable them to land a cargo, not only clean and in good order, but with a certain degree of regularity as regarded time. The ships that have sailed from English ports for San Francisco have been selected from a particularly inferior class of tubs, principally from the erroneous supposition that anything was good enough for the diggings. Then observe the mistake! The expensive dashing clipper leaves New York, and, after a three months’ passage, lands her cargo clean and dry in San Francisco (where the sale of packages depends very much on their outward as well as internal appearance); the English ship, which false economy has picked from about the worst in dock, after a passage of from eight to ten months, arrives in San Francisco, with _her_ cargo. The market has not only gone by for the articles she brings, but these, from long confinement, and her unseaworthy qualities, are landed in such an unprepossessing state as to be almost unsaleable. Nor is this all--the clipper ship having discharged, sails for China, and takes home the first teas at a high rate of freight, discharges at London, and returns again to New York, full; having accomplished a rapid voyage round the world, and, in all probability, cleared a large portion of her first cost in her first voyage. But our English clunbungy can find no cargo to take home from San Francisco, there being no export; she knows better than to present herself in China as a candidate for teas, there is little chance of her getting guano, so she either goes home empty at a great expense, or, as is more often the case, is knocked down by auction for less than her value, and is converted into a floating store-ship.[8]

It was said, I remember, when these clippers first attracted attention, and before Australia had been found to be auriferous, that we had no field for the employment of such vessels, and that our own “A 1 for thirteen-year” ships were better adapted for our trade; that they were stronger and more _lasting_. Where we enjoy a monopoly of ship-transport, as for many years in some places we have done, the argument of “let well alone” is excellently prudent.

That our vessels are strong no one will deny who ever saw a teak-built ship with her heavy beams and prodigious wooden knees; that they are _lasting_ follows as a matter of course, but this very qualification is at this moment our drawback to improvement. We are something like a man who has determined not to get a suit of clothes adapted for the dog-days until he has worn out his old winter garments, and has been unfortunate enough to have had these made of that imperishable article known as corduroy.

It is plain enough that we shall have comparatively few clipper ships until our enormous mercantile navy is worn out; and all we have now to regret is the stubbornness of that heart of oak whose durability we have been wont to laud in speech and song. In the meantime, unless Aberdeen and other ports work cheerily, the Californian clippers will bid for the carriage of the teas, and take the bread literally from between our teeth; and, what is still more galling, the Yankee clippers will take our Australian trade, if they have not already done so. We have a bold competitor on the waters now, and I regret to see that almost at the moment that the projected Panama and Sydney steam-line is withdrawn for want of _government support_, measures are being taken by the American government to connect San Francisco and China, and thus complete the first steam communication round the world; whilst the “Sovereign of the Seas” and “Golden Age” are conveying our emigrants from Liverpool to Australia. On the other hand, the spirit of speculation in building clipper ships in America has been so far overdone as to cause many of them to be too hastily “run up,” and a few of these have arrived in San Francisco, and in London, much strained and with damaged cargoes.

* * * * *

The Chinese have emigrated to California in great numbers. Those in San Francisco are mostly engaged in mercantile pursuits, and supply their countrymen at the mines with necessaries. There has been great outcry in the gold regions here respecting the rapidly-increasing numbers of the Chinese miners, and it was proposed forcibly to stop their immigration; it was argued, rather dog-in-the-mangerly, that they collected vast quantities of gold from the soil that of right belonged to the Americans only, and that they carried their gold-dust to their own country to spend. The last objection had some justice in it, for undoubtedly it is contrary to the spirit of a young colony to encourage the immigration of a class of people who bring their own rice with them, and impoverish the auriferous soil without leaving a “_pice_” behind them for the permanent improvement of the country.

I believe there are few men who have been thrown much among the Chinese who believe that many honest ones can be found among them; old Whampoa of Singapore, who gives champagne dinners in a most orthodox manner, may be one; but I confess, for my part, that from the Emperor down to the fellow in the blue shirt who begs in Piccadilly, and looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, I don’t believe in them. They are a people whose natural propensities lead them to cheat, and whose natural cunning aids this object most materially.

A short time ago it was discovered that a clique existed in San Francisco composed of a few of the wealthiest Chinese, and that these self-constituted mandarins exercised so much influence over the Chinese population of the country as to subject them to fines and bastinado, and they even went to the length of shipping some of them back to their own country; this, however, having been brought to light by the police, was temporarily checked, as these punishments were applied only for the purpose of extortion.

The Chinese themselves are so used to this kind of despotic rule that they made no effort to resist it even when it was assumed by those not in authority; but they behaved better under the infliction of fines than they would otherwise have done, and indeed I am puzzled to know what such a race would become, with their natural cunning, under a freer government than that they enjoy.

* * * * *

On the 3rd of May, at eleven in the evening, the fire-bell again startled us; but on this occasion the first glance at the lurid glare and heavy mass of smoke that rolled towards the bay evidenced that the fire had already a firm grip on the city. The wind was unusually high, and the flames spread in a broad sheet over the town. All efforts to arrest them were useless; houses were blown up and torn down in attempts to cut off communication; but the engines were driven back step by step, while some of the brave firemen fell victims to their determined opposition. As the wind increased to a gale, the fire became beyond control; the brick buildings in Montgomery Street crumbled before it; and before it was arrested, over one thousand houses, many of which were filled with merchandise, were left in ashes. Many lives were lost, and the amount of property destroyed was estimated at two millions and a half sterling.

No conception can be formed of the grandeur of the scene; for at one time the burning district was covered by one vast sheet of flame that extended half a mile in length. But when the excitement of such a night as this has passed by, one scarcely can recall the scene. The memory is confused in the recollection of the shouts of the excited populace--the crash of falling timbers--the yells of the burnt and injured--the clank of the fire-brakes--the hoarse orders delivered through speaking-trumpets--maddened horses released from burning livery-stables plunging through the streets--helpless patients being carried from some hospital, and dying on the spot, as the swaying crowd, forced back by the flames, tramples all before it--explosions of houses blown up by gunpowder--showers of burning splinters that fall around on every side--the thunder of brick buildings as they fall into a heap of ruin--and the blinding glare of ignited spirits. Amidst heat that scorches, let you go where you will--smoke that strikes the eyes as if they had been pricked by needles--water that, thrown off the heated walls, falls on you in a shower of scalding steam--you throw your coat away and help to work the engine-brakes, as calls are made for more men.

At daylight you plod home, half-blind, half-drowned, half-scorched, half-stunned, and quite bewildered; and from that time you never care to recall one half of the horrors you have witnessed on the night of the conflagration of the 3rd of May.

The Dramatic Museum was “burnt out” on this occasion; and about the same time the ship I had awaited arrived. I had expected to receive an iron house in her, but as this tenement (which I had taken great pains to have constructed in England) was landed in the shape of several bundles of bent and rusty iron plates, and irrecognisable rotten planks, I deserted the property, and allowed the owners of the wharf to throw it overboard, which they eventually did after six months’ reflection.

Iron houses under most circumstances are a failure, and I write from experience in the matter. I have sat in churches made of iron, and have been glad to get out of them for that reason. I have thrown down my billiard-cue in disgust in iron club-houses, have paid my bill incontinently and left iron hotels, and have lived in misery in an iron shooting-box of my own, which was supposed to be _very complete_.

I could live comfortably at all times in my little log hut at the “farm” but never could I endure myself inside my iron house. When the sun shone it was too hot; as night advanced it cooled too suddenly, and at daylight I shivered. When it was too warm the hot iron, with its anti-corrosive paint, emitted a sickening smell; and when the rain came down on the roof it sounded like a shower of small shot.[9] I lined it with wood throughout, that is to say, I built a _wooden house_ inside my iron one, and then it was only bearable. But it would have been cheaper, it seemed to me, to have built the wooden house first, and then have put the iron on if it was wanted, which it was not.

In this age, when so many of our countrymen are emigrating, it becomes almost the duty of a traveller to recount any experience that may tend to the benefit of those who go after him; and therefore I trust that in remarks similar to the foregoing, which may or may not affect a peculiar branch of trade, I may be exonerated from any other intention than that of benefiting others by my experience. I have seen so many metal and wooden houses thrown away (I have seen in one heap of rubbish the value of ten thousand pounds), that I would recommend to the emigrant of moderate means not to purchase either the one or the other. If new gold fields are discovered, as most probably they will be, and reports are rife of house room commanding enormous prices there, never for all that let him take his shell out, snail-like, on his back; let him take the money that would buy the house--the cash will be the scarcest article there, and will find him house-room and a profit too. Perhaps nowhere has my argument been better proved than in California. Large numbers of iron houses were shipped to that country when first reports arrived of the scarcity of building materials. Had they been capable of resisting fire they would perhaps have been less generally condemned, but of those that were erected, not only did the thin corrugated houses first expand and then collapse, and tumble down with astonishing rapidity before the flames, but in the fire I have just recorded the American iron house of Taeffe and M’Cahill, of which the plates were nearly an inch in thickness, and the castings of apparently unnecessary weight, collapsed like a preserved-meat can, and destroyed six persons, who, believing it to be fire-proof, remained inside. And, in connection with this subject, it is worthy of mention that when these houses arrived in California there was no one to be found who could put them together; not but that the method is very simple, but simple things, as we all know, present great difficulties at times in their solution.

A friend of mine employed a man for a long time at four pounds a day, merely to superintend the erection of an iron hotel; it was completed at last, and, although it had a somewhat lopsided appearance it looked pretty well under the influence of light-green paint; but the fire came and it “caved in,” as the Americans say.

This discussion on iron buildings would have found no place here, had not these cheerless tenements been connected with a speculation into which I was at this time induced to enter: nor would the speculation have been alluded to, particularly as it turned out a failure, were it not again inseparably connected with a peculiar feature of the country.

It appeared that the state was looking about at this time for a site on which to erect a capital, where, free from the busy hum of men, the representatives of the people might meet and do their country’s work. Upon the condition that General Vallejo would expend a large amount in the erection of public buildings, a part of this gentleman’s property was selected by the then Governor as the “seat of government,” and upon that, a few scrubby-looking hills that bordered on the bay, were surveyed and staked off, and there was your town of “Vallejo.”

About this time a store-ship, laden with iron houses, belonging to a friend of mine, sunk at her moorings during a heavy gale. When raised she was so full of mud, clay, and small crabs that there was no possibility of rendering her cargo fit for sale at San Francisco. The bright idea occurred to me of landing these muddy materials at Vallejo, and, after allowing the tide to clean them, to convert them to some use in assisting to erect this capital that was to be “made to order.” Landing my cargo on Vallejo beach at low water mark, Canute-like, I ordered the tide to complete the very dirty work I had set before it, which it did, and, to finish the story here, in the course of six months I erected a very handsome hotel out of the materials. I felt rather pleased when it was finished, and painted, and handsomely furnished, to think what a butterfly I had turned out of the very dirty grub I had found in the hold of the old hulk. But the moral of the story lies in the fact that at this juncture the government altered their minds relative to the site of the capital, and selected Benicia in preference.

The city “made to order” was then pulled down and sold for old materials, to the great delight, as may be imagined, of myself and the other speculators who had worked so assiduously to raise it, and who had received no compensation. It is quite like the story of the Enchanted City, that was up one day and down the next; but somehow I don’t find so much pleasure in recalling the history of Vallejo as I did as a boy in reading the fairy tale.

The hills of Vallejo are destitute of game, but abound in coyotes, who lead a predatory life, not altogether, I suspect, free from care or anxiety, as, excepting in the calving season, they are dependent for food on the chance carcase of some poor mired bull or over-driven mule; and, as these casualties are not of very frequent occurrence, I feel satisfied that hunger and the coyote know each other. And indeed he has, in a great measure, himself alone to blame that his stomach is always either too empty or too full; for this fellow, when he gets a meal, raises such a hue and cry in the dead of night as effectually warns all savoury animals to avoid his presence.

In the calving season the coyotes are in clover, and the little veals fall an easy prey to a pack of these nocturnal robbers. In winter, when the wild geese cover the hills, I doubt if the coyote gains much permanent benefit, judging from the fact that I have seldom found feathers. The geese encamp in vast armies, and at times perhaps outlying picquets and sentries asleep on their post get cut off by the enemy; but the wild goose, fool as he may be, has just so much keen relish for a good joke as to allow the coyote to reach a point where expectation has resolved itself into certainty, and then the goose decamps, harassed undoubtedly, but whole in body. The coyote has more of the dog than the fox in his composition, and is a bungling poacher at any time; one feature alone of his character proves this, inasmuch that, when suddenly disturbed, he runs but a few yards, then stops, turns round and looks at you. A Norfolk poaching lurcher knows better than that, _he_ would never turn his face to you for fear you should _identify him_, at least so Barnes tells me, and he ought to know; but the most satisfactory proof that the coyote is a weak forager exists in the conclusive fact that you seldom shoot one that has anything in his stomach.

As, therefore, there was no employment for my rifle at Benicia, I was thrown on my resources for amusement. Fortune again favoured me; fortune, by the way, always has favoured me when I have been in pursuit of amusement, but she snubs me amazingly whenever my designs are in the least degree mercenary, which leads me to infer that that divinity is of rather a jovial disposition than otherwise.

In one day’s search I secured two horses, one gig, three well-formed Australian kangaroo dogs, and three blood-hound whelps, just arrived from Hobart Town; these being shipped in a small schooner, in company with my iron shooting box, I started for San Luis, and called on Ramsey, who had probably forgotten me. I urged him at once to come and be a Vallejo-ite; he demurred at first, but, alas, we are all mortal; pointing with one hand to his buckskins and hunting saddle, rotting from disuse, with the other I directed his attention to my greyhounds, then I uttered one word, “coyotes,” and Ramsey struck his flag in passive submission to his destiny--and followed me.