Granite Crags [An account of travels in California.] With illustrations

Chapter I. Tahiti To San Francisco

— EASTER-DAY IN CALIFORNIA — A NEW CITY — RECLAIMED LAND — WILD LUPINES — SEA- OTTERS — THE LONE MOUNTAIN — PROGRESSIVE FUNERALS. On Board the Paloma, off California, Easter-Eve, April 20, 1878. Dear Brother Wanderer,— I must write you a few lines ere setting foot for the first time in the great New World, that I may despatch them as soon as we touch land, and start them off in search of you. I suppose if I address to London — the great centre — they will be forwarded to you somewhere within a year, whether your erratic flight has landed you in Kamschatka or Patagonia, Spitzbergen or Tasmania. As for me, I am strangely behindhand in the matter of news, as it is nine months since a letter has reached me, with the exception of a few inter-insular notes from A French officials and Tahitian chiefesses — kind, good friends, who have made the last half-year wonderfully pleasant to me.

But from kinsfolk and home, not one message could have reached me, and a few chance sentences in stray news papers have been the only echoes that have floated to me across the great waters. For of course all my letters were sent to Fiji, which, as you know, has been our home for the last two years. (I left it in the beginning of Septem ber, tempted by an invitation to make a very delightful cruise in a French man-of-war, which has resulted in my remaining for several months in beautiful Tahiti.) Of course the last letters that reached me ere I left Fiji were rather antiquated, bearing date June 4, 1877 ; and all of more recent date have gone on accumulating in Fiji, till, finding I could not return there direct, I requested that they should be sent to await me at Honolulu, which port I hoped to have reached ere now in one of the sailing vessels which are occasionally despatched from Tahiti to fetch cattle from the Sandwich Isles.

However, after long waiting, I found that the chances of getting a ship were so uncertain, that the shortest way in the end would be to take a passage all the way to San Francisco in this little brigantine of 230 tons, and thence return to Honolulu by one of the Great Pacific mail steamers. As your wanderings have not yet led you to the Pacific (and I know that you, like myself, only learn your geo graphy by actually going over the ground), I may as well THE "GONIES." 3 mention that the distance from Tahiti to Honolulu is about two thousand miles, and from Tahiti to San Francisco is actually about four thousand miles, measured as the crow flies. But what with untoward winds and unlooked-for currents, our flight has rather resembled that of the great brown " gonies " that bear us company, and we have con trived on this voyage to make fully six thousand miles, and have taken six weeks to do it, and that, without touching land.

The gonies would delight you. What may be their scientific name I cannot say for certain, though I am told that they are young albatross, who, like the " ugly duck ling," do not develop their snowy plumage the first year. We see a few of these grand birds, with the wild, fearless eyes, and there is no mistaking them ; but the gonies are our never - failing companions. They are large birds of a greyish-brown colour, with long, narrow wings, black tipped. I am sure some of them must measure six feet across. They wheel around us, and sweep to and fro with an easy, graceful flight, which is beautiful to behold, and fills me with envy. Oh, had I the wings of a gonie ! Sometimes a tempting fish-shoal attracts them, and they drop far behind us. A few moments later they are miles ahead ; so, apparently without the slightest exertion, they float to and fro at their own wild will, and travel ten times faster than the swiftest steamer.

Though the voyage has been so unexpectedly prolonged, I cannot say that I have found it unpleasant ; quite the contrary, it has been like a summer yachting cruise. The Paloma 1 is a beautiful little ship, carrying a crowd of whitest sails ; she is exquisitely clean, her ship's com pany consist of singularly quiet, gentle Swedes, Germans, and Rarotongans. Our cabins are very comfortable ; my only fellow-passengers are most friendly and agreeable. We carry a cargo of 270,000 oranges, gathered green in the orange-groves of Tahiti, but which have ripened during this long voyage, and we have done our best to diminish their number. We have had lovely weather, though too often becalmed for days together, or else drifting aimlessly with the currents, or just kept moving by the faintest, softest breeze, which has generally carried us in the wrong direction.

I never more fully realised the weariness of the " wandering fields of barren foam." We have proved the truth of the old adage, that after a storm comes a calm, for just before we sailed from Tahiti, a terrific hurricane had swept over the isles lying to the north, in the " Dangerous Archipelago." Many land birds came on board when we were fully three hundred miles from the Paumotus. The captain says they are kinds which he has never seen on any previous voyage, so he believes they had been blown away from home by the hurricane. He thinks the whole atmosphere is out of order, as, according to all experience, we have been en titled to a south-east trade-wind all the time, whereas, for days and days together, every breath of air was from north-east, driving us far out of our course. 1 The Dove (Spanish).

NOTES OF A WANDERER. The moonlight nights have been perfect, clear as day. Occasionally we have had heavy showers, which we hailed with delight, as affording us a chance of a fresh-water bath. For though the good Earotongans daily rig up a bathing-tent on deck, where we may splash to our heart's content in great tubs of salt water, we often think regret fully of the lovely limpid streams of Tahiti, and long for soft fresh water. So whenever a welcome shower begins, we don our Tahitian sacqucs (long flowing dressing-gowns), and bless the heaven-sent shower-bath. Now we are drawing very near our journey's end, and I confess I do hope I may have a few days on terra firma ere starting on the long return voyage to Hawaii. We have been looking forward to spending Easter-day ashore, but now there appears very small chance of our doing so.

Since the Easter morning when we sailed from Mar seilles, I have never been within hail of our own Church for any one festival. The following Easter was spent in the wilds of Fiji, and this day last year I was among the Maoris of the volcanic region in New Zealand. As to Christmas, the first was spent with a wild tribe of Fijians who had only just given up cannibalism; on the next, we were transhipping from a little steamer to a big one, en route to New Zealand ; and last Christmas-day found me in one of the loveliest of Tahitian valleys. So you see that a real ecclesiastical Easter would have special attrac tions. Nevertheless we have almost given up hope of reaching land so soon, as the wind has failed us again. San Francisco, Easter Monday. I had written so far when a fresh breeze sprang up, and we literally flew the last hundred and fifty miles, entering the Golden Gates at 2 a.m. It was clear moonlight, so I was able to reconnoitre, and took in my first impressions of America, in a series of lighthouses, which mark various points in the magnificent harbour, in which there is said to be room for all the navies of Europe.

Finally, we an chored just before the cold grey dawn crept up, with a chilling shiver (oh how different from the balmy tropical mornings in which I have revelled for so long !). There was nothing golden in our first glimpses of Cali fornia. We indulged in a jorum of excellent hot gin toddy, to correct the bitter, damp cold; and soon after sunrise we watched a number of huge steamers, densely crowded with excursionists, start from the different wharfs, to make the most of the Easter holiday. Then we made our little preparations for landing. A sleepy, shivering Custom-house officer had come on board near the harbour-mouth ; but as it was Sunday, none of our baggage could pass the Customs. We were each, how ever, allowed to take a small bag, supposed to be sufficient for one night. Apparently every one is expected to bear his own burden in this free and independent land, but the friendly Swedish mate insisted on carrying the ladies' bags to the hotel where we secured rooms.

By this time the Easter chimes were pealing from a multitude of church bells, and the streets were thronged with masses of human beings. The grey chill morning EASTER-DAY IN CALIFORNIA. 7 was succeeded by a day of brilliant sunlight, and among the crowds of church-goers were many in apparel positively gorgeous. London streets would wonder to find themselves swept by such magnificent satins and velvets, or to see such diamonds glittering in the light of the sun. It struck me painfully to notice the great proportion of women who would evidently have been attractive but for the free use of white and rouge : you might fancy that " this glorious climate of California " could dispense with such polluting adjuncts, but these ladies evidently think otherwise. And yet how they would despise their brown sisters or brothers who ou a gala-day " assist nature" by a touch of vermilion or a few streaks of blue !

My travelling companion being a rigid Eoman Catholic, led the way to St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, where the bishop was celebrating High Mass. It is a plain build ing, but made beautiful by its Easter decorations and the profusion of exquisite flowers. Thousands of roses and lilies made the air fragrant, and were doubly welcome to eyes weary of the broad restless ocean. It seemed to me somewhat a strange coincidence that, having received my last ecclesiastical impressions of the Old World at the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Roch, in Paris, on Good Friday 1875, I should next hear the grand Easter Anthem in a Roman Catholic cathedral on this my first morning in the New World. The singing was most lovely, but the crowd was so dense that there was not a chance of a seat ; so, leaving my friend to her devotions, I went to Grace Church — an Episcopal Church which she had pointed out to me a little farther.

This was likewise densely crowded, but a very civil stranger gave me his seat, for which I was grateful, the walk uphill from the wharf having proved fatiguing. Here also the decorations are most elaborate. Besides the great cross above the altar (made entirely of rare hothouse flowers), there hangs suspended from the great chancel arch an immense cross of pure white Calla lilies (Arum) in a circle of evergreens, beneath which, in very large evergreen letters, each hanging separate, is the angel's Easter greeting — " He is risen." The effect of this device, so mysteriously floating in mid-air, is very striking. In every corner of the church flowers have been show ered with the same lavish hand — the font, lectern, pulpit, organ, walls, but especially in the chancel, where the choicest flowers are reserved for the altar-vases and the altar-rails, which are altogether hidden by the wealth of exquisite roses.

To some sensitive persons I can imagine that their perfume might have been overpowering, but to me it seemed like a breath from heaven. It was pleasant, too, in this " far country," to hear the old familiar liturgy, like a voice from over the wide waters, bringing with it a flood of home memories and associa tions. Moreover, it was quite unexpected, as during the last two years I have been thrown in company with so many different regiments of the great Christian army, that I suppose I had assumed that this Californian church would prove one more variety. Certainly I had not THE AMERICAN PRAYER-

BOOK. 9

realised that America has preserved the old Book of Common Prayer almost intact, with only a few minor changes, every one of which seems to have been dictated by good common-sense — as, for instance, after the Com mandments, where we so abruptly introduce the prayer for the Queen, the American priest adds, " Hear also what our Lord Jesus Christ saith," and sums up the Old Law by pronouncing the New Commandment, in the words of St Matthew, xxii. 37-40. He then offers the closing prayer from the Confirmation Service, that we may be kept in the ways of God's law and the works of His commandments. All vain repetitions are avoided. Either the Apostles' Creed or the Nicene may be said both morning and evening, but never both during one service. The frequent reiteration of the Lord's Prayer is avoided.

In the Canticles, such portions as seem inapplicable to ourselves (such as the last half of the Venite) are omitted, and verses of praise from the Psalms are substituted. The Magnificat is replaced by the 92d Psalm ; the Nunc Dimittis by the 103d, " Praise the Lord, 0 my soul." Some advantageous verbal alterations occur — as in the Litany, " In all time of our wealth" is rendered "all time of our prosperity." The principal variations from the English Prayer-Book occur in the order of the Service for the Holy Communion, which is almost identical with the old office of the Scot tish Episcopal Church, and as such, familiar to my ears. In short, all was as a dream of home, with the exception of the strange and unnatural sound of hearing for the first time the name of the President of the United States sub stituted for that of " Victoria our Queen," and the use of the term " Christian rulers " in lieu of " kings."

The singing is admirable, but not congregational. It is left to a carefully trained (and, I am told, highly paid) choir of men and women. Surpliced choirs are apparently not in favour here, from an impression that they tend toward dreaded ritualism. In the course of the day I looked into various other churches, each vying with the other in the beauty of its Easter decorations. One had the entire reredos, as it were, inlaid with lilies of the valley on a groundwork of maiden hair fern ; above the altar was a beautiful cross of white camellias and tuberoses, and the chancel-rails, lectern, and pulpit are dressed with lovely leaves of Calla lilies, while the most exquisite white exotics adorn the font. Wreaths and emblems, crosses and crowns, of white camellias or white pinks, with here and there a point of rich colour in some grand cluster of glorious red roses, delight the eye wherever it turns.

This morning the newspapers devote several pages to descriptions of the principal features of each church in the city. It reduces the poetry of the thing to somewhat of a prosaic detail, to find an exact record of how many thousands of each flower were used in the decoration of each church, and what favourite " stars " sang in each choir. I learn that in Grace Church four thousand white Calla lilies form one item. Yet they did not seem more numer- THE CHILDREN'S FLOWER FESTIVAL. 11 ous there than in many other churches ; so the inference is, that we have reached a floral paradise, strikingly in con trast with my recent experience of the general scarcity of flowers in the South Sea Isles. You would have thought that this was indeed the case could you have seen this city yesterday evening. In Cali fornia the evening of Easter-day is the children's flower festival, and every church in San Francisco devotes its evening service to the little ones.

I found my way back to Grace Church, and have rarely witnessed a prettier spectacle. There must have been many hundred children, of all ranks and ages, down to the tiniest toddles of the infant school. All were prettily dressed, and they marched in procession, carrying silken banners, and singing carols. All carried flowers, either in pretty baskets, or great bou quets, or arranged in some device. Many had collected small offerings of money for different charitable objects, and each, in turn, presented its gift to be laid on the altar, which soon was literally buried beneath the flowers heaped upon it, which were afterwards distributed to the hospitals and to all the sick poor throughout the great city, that they might whisper the Easter message to many a lonely sufferer. The service consisted chiefly of carol-singing by the little ones and their teachers, and it was altogether very bright and happy.

I do not know how all this strikes you. To me, I must confess, it was a great surprise. I had imagined this city of St Francis to be most unsaintly — or, not to mince words, I supposed it was still the rowdy city where, but a few years ago, such wild scenes of misrule were the com mon events of daily life. And now my first impressions are of thronged churches, hymns of praise, and flower festivals ! After the evening service I walked back to the hotel alone, passing through several dimly lighted streets. All seemed quiet and peaceful. Multitudes of young girls and their teachers must have gone by lonely and devious paths on their homeward way. But no shadow of dread seemed to suggest itself to any parents. And yet, when I returned to the hotel, I heard gentlemen discuss ing the state of the town, and declaring that it was unsafe to go out after dark without a revolver.

Evidently the subject admits of varied colouring. I am told that the " dangerous class" here are a race of young rowdies, known here as " hoodlums," a recognised class of roughs, male and female, whose misdeeds are a constant source of annoyance to the citizens, who never theless seem powerless to suppress the mischief. I suppose that the police are numerically too weak (they only number about four hundred) ; and of course this great city yields a very large body of ill-conditioned " hobblede hoys," who form a raw material ready to develop into full-blown criminals. There are a large number of well-known gangs of these young ne'er-do-weels, composed of lads and lassies of the very roughest type, who are always on the prowl, looking out what mischief they can do. Many of them carry knives and revolvers, and glory in a chance of using them, not only on belated wanderers, but occasionally on quiet A FRIEND IN A FAR COUNTRY. 13 shopkeepers whose goods they covet, or publicans whose beer and spirits they object to pay for.

But the poor, inoffensive, diligent Chinamen are the objects of especial hatred to these cowardly rascals, who never miss a chance of molesting them ; and, of course, no policeman ever hap pens to be near when one of the gangs sets upon some solitary workman, and beat and kick him within an inch of his life. April 23d. What a strange world this is for unexpected meetings ! Two years ago a Sussex friend sent me a letter of introduction to the representative of a large banking firm in this city. Yesterday morning, finding that three weeks would elapse ere a steamer sailed for Honolulu, I ques tioned whether there was any use in delivering so stale a letter. Counsels of wisdom said " Yes," so the letter was sent out, and half an hour later the writer himself stood beside me ! I then learnt, what I had never before realised, that he is himself the head of the firm, aud had just chanced to run out from England on some matter of business, so his own letter was handed to him.

Never was the face of a friend more welcome. Having recently parted with some of my kindred, he was able to «ive me good news of them, and soon afterwards he returned with Mr Booker, H.B.M. Consul, who had tidings of my friends in Fiji. Both these gentlemen say, that if I had carefully selected my time for visiting California, I could not have chosen better, for that this is the very best season. An unusually wet winter is just over, and has left the country exquisitely green, and carpeted with wild flowers. Every stream is full, and all waterfalls are in glory. They say that if only the snows on the Sierra Ne vada are sufficiently melted to allow of travelling, I ought on no account to miss seeing the Yo-semite" Valley, and that I could easily go there and back, before the steamer sails. So they have promised to make all inquiries, and to look out for a suitable escort for this expedition.

Meanwhile, this morning, Mr Harrison took me for a long and most interesting drive to all the principal points in this gigantic baby city. Strange, indeed, it is to hear of the marvellous changes that have occurred here within the last thirty years, all within his own memory. Prior to 1849, San Francisco was merely one of twenty small stations of the old Spanish Mission ; and the only antiquity to be seen in the city — the Westminster Abbey which knits the present century with the past — is the old mission church of the patron saint, St Francis of Assisi, a very plain building of adobe — i.e., sun - dried bricks. In its graveyards are buried wanderers from many lands, but the churchyard, like the church, looks melan choly and decayed. It bears date 1776, and was the first church of the little Spanish colony of priests, who came here to teach the Indians, and were the only white men on this coast prior to the discovery of gold.

They themselves knew of the existence of gold, but they discouraged all search for it, knowing well the evil that must result to their Indian converts whenever that mad EARLY DAYS IN CALIFORNIA. excitement, consequent on a gold-rush, should flood Cali fornia with all the wild spirits of the earth. And rightly these good fathers judged. Till 1849 they were able to guard their fold. Then came the gold-fever; and in a few months ships of all nations entered the Golden Gates, bringing thousands and tens of thousands to retrieve broken fortunes, or seek new ones, in this Land of Promise. On the desert sandhills, where hitherto only a few wandering Indians had built their bark huts, there were now scattered tents, standing singly or in groups. Soon disorderly little settlements of shabby shanties were run up, which gradu ally enlarged till they covered all the available land.

The history of those early years was a chronicle of anarchy. Life in the city was one of reckless dissipation — a natural reaction from the hardest phases of privation and toil endured in search of gold. Society was turned upside down. Men well born and well bred were thankful to turn their hand to every conceivable work which would bring in the means of life. I heard of one English gentle man who, finding himself robbed of everything except his rifle, made his way to the mining districts, and made a very fair living by shooting bears, whose flesh the hungry miners gladly bought at a dollar per pound. As a good bear weighs six or seven hundred pounds, the hunter soon realised a "genteel competency" as a "flesher." At first the miner's work was confined to what is called " placer " mining — that is, surface digging, — and washing for gold in beds of streams.

Then came the more systematic business of quartz-crushing; and by 1858 three hundred mills, with strong machinery, were hard at work. By that time the gold-fever, having reached its height, began to subside ; and multitudes, weary of certain toil for such uncertain profits, turned their minds to other industries. By 1861, not more than fifty mills still continued at work. By degrees the rowdies, who had given the settlement at San Francisco such a bad name, vanished before the presence of Vigilance Committees and Lynch law. Those who escaped summary justice took the hint from a word of warning, and the majority went farther inland. Now, in the place where those log and shingle huts then lay scattered, stands a vast city of 300,000 inhabitants. It covers a space of forty-two square miles, and has many really splendid streets, and a large number of immense hotels like great palaces (most luxurious in every respect save that of cosiness — a point which strikes one, because so many families have no other home).

One of the principal buildings is the great Mint of the United States, said to be the most perfect institution of its kind in the whole world. It is open to all comers every forenoon, and citizens and strangers are alike at liberty to inspect the manufacture of Californian gold into coins equivalent to English sovereigns, but so much purer, that ours will only pass here at a discount. There are theatres and an opera-house; a great city hall ; splendid public libraries, free to all citizens above fifteen years of age ; equally free are the excellent Govern- A RECLAIMED SEA FRONTAGE. ment schools. Besides these, every denomination has its special schools, churches, and chapels. There are the Eoman Catholic and Episcopal cathedrals, Jewish syna gogues and Chinese temples, gorgeous Turkish baths, numerous admirable markets scattered through the city.

In its busy working districts there are foundries and machine shops, smithy-works, lumber -merchants' yards, artificial stone works, patent marble works, potteries, woollen fac tories — in short, every industry you can conceive. And yet all the older inhabitants recollect when the site of this great city was only a tract of most desolate sandhills, and when ships were lying at anchor above the sands which now actually serve as foundation for one of the finest streets — one, moreover, at some distance from the sea, which has gradually been driven back, as men, determined to retain advantageous shipping positions, built their houses on piles, filled up the space beneath them, and so reclaimed acre after acre from the harbour. The present sea-wall which guards this stolen ground is built up from a depth of about thirty feet below low-water mark.

There are not wanting prophets of evil to foretell days of possible disaster, when some tidal wave or volcanic disturbance shall arise aud restore to Ocean the land thus wrested from it. We drove to a high point, whence we could look down on the city as on a map. The spot where we stood was once a quiet lake, and my companion told me how his happiest hours were spent snipe-shooting on its shores. Now it is one of the great reservoirs for the city. B There are, however, other reservoirs in the Coast Range Mountains, so that the supply is equal to the great demand — which is enormously increased by the multitude of gardens and beautifully kept lawns, each requiring constant irrigation throughout the summer. I am told that the water-rates are tremendous, and have to be paid monthly in advance.

Many families are said to spend far more on water than on bread ; but they account it money well invested, as it has transformed these sandmountains into a region of most luxuriant gardens. Moreover, it is the safeguard against fire, which must be an ever-present dan ger in a town of which wood forms so large a part. It certainly is strange to see a vast city with such splendid streets and such princely homes, large mansions and pleasant Elizabethan villas — all apparently of beauti ful white stone — and then learn that it is all wooden, and that the stone-like appearance is produced by a sprinklin« of fine sand over whitish paint. This is not because there is any lack of stone for building purposes, but because the occasional slight earthquake shocks are a continual re minder that some day a great upheaval may come and swal low up — or at least severely shake — the huge young city.

There are boiling springs at no great distance from here, which forcibly suggest a connecting-link with the great volcanoes which lie to the north, and forbid too absolute security. But even in respect to moderate earthquakes, wooden houses are found to suffer less than stone build ings, and are therefore preferred. Recently, however, some of the great firms, who dread EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE-PROOF HOUSES. 19 fire more than earthquakes, have built their business houses of real stone. The first to set this example was Wells, Fargo, & Co.'s Express (who undertake to convey everything for everybody, to and from every corner of the known world). But so expensive was labour in San Francisco, that this first stone house was imported bodily from China, where each block was cut and fitted ready for its place !

As a precaution against earthquakes, many of the prin cipal buildings — hotels, warehouses, and shops — have an inner skeleton made of strong bands of wrought-iron, fastened together by immense iron bolts. Over this frame work is built an outer casing of brick or stone, supposed to be fire-proof. It is said that in building the Palace Hotel three thou sand tons of iron were used in preparing the bands for the skeleton, besides the enormous amount required for the great iron columns which support the vast building. Of these there are upwards of sixty round the central quadrangle alone ; and above this rise seven storeys, tier above tier, each with a similar number of columns. Of the amount of iron-work in other parts of the building, I can form no notion ; but as the building covers about three acres, you can imagine it is considerable.