CHAPTER IV.

CALIFORNIA AND SAN FRANCISCO.

HE PRESIDENT called upon Mr. Merriman, who promptly took the part of leader of the club for the concluding portion of the Californian tour.

Let me first, he observed, give a general idea of San Francisco. It is situated at the northern end of a peninsula thirty miles long and about six wide. The city slopes towards the east, facing San Francisco Bay, which is between thirty and forty miles long, and from seven to twelve miles wide. The entrance to this bay from the Pacific Ocean is through the Golden Gate a strait, five miles long and a mile wide. The shores of the Golden Gate are picturesque, the northern being lined with lofty hills. The bar has thirty feet of water at low tide, and the bay has safe anchorage for ships of any size.

In 1846, San Francisco was a mere fishing-hamlet. Gold was discovered in 1848, and in less than four years the city had a population of 35,000. It now numbers at least a quarter of a million.

On the eastern shore of the bay, opposite San Francisco, is the city of Oakland, bearing a somewhat similar relation to it that Brooklyn does to New York, only that Oakland is relatively more fashionable, and is even more thoroughly a residential city and suburb than Brooklyn.

The ferryboats plying between these two cities are mammoth boats, with immense saloons above the deck. The distance is seven miles.

It gives one a strange feeling to walk the busy and beautiful streets of San Francisco and Oakland, and to think that all this has sprung up in far less than an average life-time. There must be many men now living who can look back to the time when it was an unpretentious hamlet, and when no one dreamed of the future before it.

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During the early years of the city, things proceeded after a very lawless fashion. The people who flocked to it were influenced by only one motive, and that a powerful one-the thirst for gold. There was no strong government to restrain the unruly and punish crime. At length the inhabitants formed a Vigilance Committee, which soon became "a terror to evil doers," even if not "a praise to those who did well." Its decisions were prompt, and its punishments severe, though perhaps not always just. It was not until 1855 that the municipal government

and the regular tribunals of justice became strong enough to cope with the situation; but by that time a new element had sprung up in the city-a class of men who lived by trade and commerce, as well as by mining, who were in themselves a guarantee of good order, and to whom, on the other hand, good order and permanence in the institutions of government were indispensable. Still the population of the city is so heterogeneous, and the rowdy element so strong, that it continues

to have its full share of crimes and disturbances, perhaps rather more so in proportion to its population than the other large western cities.

I must not, however, be betrayed into giving you a merely statistical narrative. Here is a series of sketches which, without any words, would convey a very good idea of the Capital of California.

DR. PAULUS: When I visited San Francisco, I was particularly struck with the contrast between its climate and that of the eastern cities of America. It was decidedly cooler in the summer months than I have ever known it to be in New

York, and I understand that it is warmer in winter. We found the climate of California very variable.

MRS. PAULUS: Yes, and there seemed to be constant fogs in San Francisco. MR. MERRIMAN: During the summer months the prevailing winds are from the northwest, and the cold air current, striking against the coast range, generates a vapor which accumulates in clouds and mists. But, for all that, the Pacific coast is. much sought after by invalids. In summer, many people leave San Francisco for Oakland, and other points on the main land, which are also considered desirable

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places for consumptives. I should have said that Oakland is the stopping-place of the Central Pacific Railroad. The bay, of which a partial view is given in our sketch, is a beautiful sea. On a clear day the view across it from the upper streets of San Francisco is singularly fine.

The streets of San Francisco are very irregular. The plan of the city is modeled after that of nearly all other American cities-straight lines and right angles, but the irregularities of the ground are such that a good deal of engineering has been called into requisition to preserve even a moderate consistency in this arrangement. Steep hills, terraces, and in some places steps, which forbid

of the town being built upon the side of a granite mountain.

The view of Montgomery street, the Broadway of San Francisco, gives an excellent idea of this. Here the crowd is more cosmopolitan than even in New York. All nationalities are represented, the Chinaman especially being noticeable. They are an industrious and thriving people, living in a section of the city by themselves, and numbering many thousands. I was amused by reading a description of a traveler's adventures in this part of San Francisco :

"One night," says Baron Hübner, "I was returning to my hotel after an

agreeable visit, and being, as I thought, sure of my way, I refused the escort of my host. 'Turn round the Chinese quarter,' was said to me, and off I started. But the night was dark; a damp, penetrating fog added to the obscurity; and in San Francisco, from Germany to China is but a step. All of a sudden I find myself in a narrow, dirty street, evidently inhabited by the yellow race. I hurry my steps, but in the wrong direction, and here I am in the very midst of the Chinese quarter. As far as the thick darkness will allow me to judge, the streets are completely deserted. The houses are wrapped in sombre shadow. Here and there, red paper lanterns swing from balconies. At every step I stumble against the sign board, and hear whispering inside the houses, where the presence of

a stranger has thus been betrayed. In some places the darkness is complete, and I can only go on by feeling. In others, momentary and vivid lights creep along the woodwork of the gilt shop shutters, and light up some grotesque monster, or the cabalistic red The wind increases in violence : down into the street and hide

and black letters on one of the sign boards. driven by the gusts, the clouds and fog sweep even the stones. I pass by an open door; a feeble light streams from it; I hear the sound of voices and dice; it is a gambling-house. A man placed as sentinel seems glued to the wall. He evidently takes me for a police inspector, and rushes in to give the alarm. I hurry on as quickly as I dare over the slippery steps. I begin to see at my feet one of the broad cross-streets of the lower town. At this very moment, at the corner of a blind alley, I am attacked by a band of These harpies hang on to my clothes, seize me with their horrid, bony fingers and nails like birds' claws, and peer at me with faces besmeared with white, red, and yellow paint. Fighting my way as best I can, I at last manage to rid myself of them, and followed by their screams and imprecations—luckily their mutilated feet prevented their running after me I reach civilization, my face

women.

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